New Rules
by Gizmo
Summary: What do you do when you get caught between Vampires, Immortals and Hunters? You play by the New Rules.


New Rules  
  
By  
  
John Macamhlaidh  
  
  
To whom it may concern, I do not own Highlander or Forever Knight or the characters from either series. And I am doing this for the fun of it and no money has been or will be involved.   
  
Big thanks to Chris for the beta. He's been inflicted with this story a few times in varying forms over the last few months and he's never complained.  
  
SPOILERS: None for either series, really.  
  
If you liked it, if you hated it send mails and tell me: macamhlaidh@ireland.com  
  
  
  
  
******   
******  
******  
  
The Quays, Dublin City  
August 2000  
  
I'd done it again. I had actually done it again. I just picked up a book, looked outside at a nice summer's day, skimmed through the first five pages of the new 'Battlestar Galactica: Series Seven' book and turned my head back to look outside and I swear it looked like it was winter. The people outside had gone from wearing T-shirts and smiles to huddled masses of cursing umbrellas with legs. I swore quietly and shook my head.  
"You think it can't get worse and then this!"  
Forbidden Planet was the only decent bookstore in all of Dublin but it was right beside the Liffey. So I knew the second I stepped outside there wouldn't be an ounce of shelter for at least fifty yards in any direction.   
"Fuck!"  
The second curse was far from silent and I saw that my outburst had attracted attention for a second, eyes measuring my short frame and then my face. On seeing my eyes they turned away. I knew that I wasn't that bad to look at, just under five eight in height and wide across the shoulders. The problem was the way I looked at people.   
One of my many teachers had said that they felt like I was putting the evil eye on them. Others would say that I was just looking at them like they were an object that was in my way. And would be moved out of my path with extreme prejudice. If I put the slightest bit of effort into my direct stare I was told, at the very least, I looked borderline psychopathic and that single fact made me few friends. But that didn't matter because I have never a people person. It wasn't in my nature.  
I put the book back on the shelf and pocketed the newest issues of "The Authority" and "Hitman", I stepped out into the rain and started walking. The center of Dublin, if you live there, is no place to own a car. Money wasn't a factor in me not having one; it was just common sense and the fact I was lazy as heel. The thought of devoting time to filling out insurance forms, tax forms and all the other crap associated with having an infernal combustion engine would drive me around the frigging bend. And so if I had to travel any distance over a few miles I got a taxi. But the chance of getting one on a Saturday like this was one in a billion.  
The heavy T-shirt was a sodden mess in less than a minute, and the jeans weren't too far behind. Getting wet wasn't much of a bother, but walking in water filled shoes was. Walking over the Ha'penny Bridge, I moved slowly through the mob and thought for a second about popping into a store and getting some cheap jacket and a cap.   
* No point. I'll be wet through before I get near any shop. *  
Running my hand through my hair I flicked off the water that had collected there. Another swipe along my eyebrows and the water running into my eyes found a new path, streaking down the side of my face. Waiting for half a second to see if there was any traffic coming I darted across the road amid a flurry of toots, hoots and blarps from passing cars. My only reply was a mumbled 'Screw you.'  
Ten minutes of sloshing through the streets got my to the top of O'Connell Street and past the hustle and bustle of the shops. A turn left and a turn right and I was home.  
The four-story house was a leftover of nineteenth century architecture at its worst. The outside of the building was plain to the point of sterility, only brown bricks, faded with a hundred years and more of time. The inside was another thing entirely. The house had cost half a million pounds to buy and I'd thrown away another quarter million on redecoration. And I was going to spend more.  
"If your feet are soaked, get rid of the shoes. I left your slippers beside the door."  
"Thanks, Nicola."  
Grinning, I kicked off the shoes and saw one of them spill out a small cupful of water onto the carpet that had cost about twenty-five quid per square yard. The grin disappeared as I dived down and threw a cloth onto the spill, hoping to get the water before it damaged the fabric.  
* Oh fuck it. *  
I heard a snicker and looked up at Nicola, standing there with a big smile on her face.   
" 'I don't care if I get this place dirty, it's mine he said.' "  
"Har-de-bloody-har. Get me a cloth before this crap soaks in. And hurry up."  
Nicola went back into the kitchen and I let myself smile. She was right. I had said those exact words only a week ago after coming in from a few hours messing around in the garden. I could still see the tracks in the carpet from that walk.  
Nicola came back with a damp cloth and dropped it onto my head before strolling into the family room just off to the right. I didn't even bother going for her. I was extremely lucky that she was going over to New York for vacation later in the day. If she weren't leaving I'd probably do time for killing her.  
  
******  
  
The final strains of 'Coronation Street' sang through the air and I dropped the magazine that I'd been reading with a sigh of relief. I'd watched a few seconds of the program and read the same page over and over to try and tune the TV out. It had worked to some extent. I knew a bit more about the benefits of electrolytic engines and that the pub owner was splitting from her husband because he'd come clean about dating some bimbo. The only reason that they'd watched the damn tape of the previous night's show was because Nicola was off and this would be her last fix of the drivel for the next few weeks.  
"Have you packed your gear?"  
Nicola turned from watching the credits and smiled at my question.  
"The bags are up in the room. I was just waiting for you to offer to help me carry them down and your refrigerator is broken."  
I sat up in the chair and was halfway to the door when the last part of my 'darling' sister's statement sank in.  
"What did you do now?"  
She gave me an indignant look and snorted.  
"Huh! You said it was useless. I opened the door, the light flickered and then it went out. And it stopped humming too."  
"Oh that's brilliant. Right, it's binned as far as I'm concerned."  
Rubbing my jaw, I walked out with Nicola right behind. Looking at the hall desk I remembered that I hadn't checked my mail my eyes fell on the small pile of envelopes and then the phone beside them. Something occurred to me as my foot went onto the first step.  
"Did you remember to call Ma and Da before you went?"  
The young woman gasped and sat on the lowest step of the stairs, pulling the phone off the small table at her feet and began dialing. Smiling, I went up to get her bags.  
  
******  
  
Waving the cab goodbye, I watched my sister wave back at me through the small and dirty rear window. I was honestly sorry to see her go. As irritating as she could be she was my sister and I loved her.  
I sighed and looked back over my shoulder at the house again. My mother had been at me to do the front of the house and make it look like it was lived in and not some squatters shack. The problem was that if I did that some thieving prick would know a person with money lived here and would hit the place when I was gone some night.   
* Not a chance. *  
From what I had heard of this neighborhood I was one of the first of the 'new class' of owners in the area. It probably meant that this road would become yuppie central within six months and have a whole hell of a lot of weird people living here. I'd even heard from one neighbor, an eighty year old woman who'd been living in her house all of her life, that the end house was owned by a bunch of Goth types who only came out at night. The place looked a little busy at the moment with a small gang of big guys walking up to the front door.  
Smiling widely, I saw the taxi finally turn the corner and stepped back into the house just as a cold breeze swept up. Taking a look up at the clouds I saw the gray that was sweeping forward begin to change to the darker shade of rain clouds. Cursing, I ran back into the kitchen, slamming the front door shut behind him.  
* I'll get that bloody useless machine out of the kitchen now while I can. Then the garbage men can have a nice time with it and I can sleep in. *  
  
******  
  
Manhandling the refrigerator out of the kitchen was easy enough. The kitchen was the only part of the house, next to the den, that I hadn't finished deciding on. The massive peat burning range had been installed at the start of the century and even with all those years behind it, it was still too good to dump out. As much as loved using the microwave the smells that the old oven generated reminded me of my grandparent's house in Waterville, County Kerry. Just closing my eyes brought back those happy memories of waking up in their house and seeing the whole stretch of the valley that the house lay in.   
Staring down at the mess at my feet I brought myself back to the problem of the refrigerator and I had to say that I was glad of the fact that this was just a piddling little twin shelf machine. It made the process of throwing the piece of crap away all that easier. Getting it to the back door, I looked at the three steps that led down into the yard and smiled.  
* Life can be fun. *  
Stepping back, I put my foot on the side of the fridge and kicked out, knocking the chunk of white rubbish out of my house. And that's when things went wrong.  
The bottom of the cooler caught on the side of the door, spinning the machine on one corner. The door flew open and as the fridge fell down the steps, one of the hinges broke and the door half fell off.  
"SHIT!"  
Jumping down, I grabbed the machine and went to lift it upright.  
"AW FUCK THIS FOR A GAME OF SOLDIERS!"  
The broken hinge had been right under the point that I'd gripped the fridge and it had sliced into my right hand with all the precision of a scalpel. In reflex I clenched my hand and pulled it to my chest staining the T-shirt as heavy and fast flowing drips of blood poured between my clenched fingers. As I opened my white knuckled fist I cursed again as a flash of pain made me hiss and I waited for it to pass before checking the damage. It wasn't serious but the feeling of stupidity for doing something as moronic as that disappeared under a massive flash of berserk anger. Grabbing a dishcloth I wrapped it around my hand and hissed again as the rough fabric brushed against the lips of the cut. The added pain fuelled the anger and all that mattered to me now was pounding severe and irreparable damage into this piece of crap. Clutching my bleeding hand to my chest, I began to kick the refrigerator across the small yard.  
"YOU LITTLE"-Kick- " PIECE OF"-Kick-" USELESS "-Kick-" FUCKING "-Kick-" SHIIIITE!"  
Grabbing the handle for the door at the back of the yard I pulled it open and kicked the dented cooler out into the rear alley.  
And was smashed back into the door as someone tripped over the stupid machine and fell against my legs.  
It was some weirdo in a heavy cloak, the hood pulled down over their head and face. Whoever the person was they had a death-grip on my leg and climbing up the limb hand by hand. If they kept going up in a few seconds they'd be able to tell if I was circumcised or not. I bent over enough to grab a handful of the hood and pulled back.   
"Where the FUCK do you think you're...."  
I felt my jaw shut with a snap as I looked at one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. A mane of dark hair framed a pale face. That paleness that only emphasized the beautiful blood red lips and vivid green eyes that seemed to almost glow. I was about to mumble 'wow' and help her up when I saw her nostrils twitch as she sniffed the air and then opened her mouth. And I saw the fangs.  
My 'wow' disappeared as I screamed 'shit' and tried to push her away. Her grip on my leg doubled and her head shot forward and latched onto my leg.  
The pain was unbelievable.  
A dog had bitten me once before but that had been a fleeting thing. It had bounced off my leg and left a bloody patch on my jeans. This was a thousand times worse. I tried to pull back my leg and the woman bit deeper, ignoring the feeble hits of my fists. A weakness came over me and I fell back against the frame of the door, losing my glasses in the process. I didn't know what the hell was happening but this freaking leech was hurting me. Clasping my hands together over my head I aimed at the blur that was the woman feeding on my leg and saw two... things appear in my chest.  
And everything went dark.  
  
******   
  
The siren began to blare its strident call the last thing I wanted to hear, regardless of the time of day. I rolled over, keeping my eyes closed and reached out to swat the alarm clock before it drove me nuts. My hand hit fresh air so I rolled over a bit more and my hand hit something hard and cold. Now that I thought about it my bed was feeling a bit hard too.  
And then I remembered the last time I had been awake.  
I rolled hard, distancing myself from the doorframe. It was hard to stop but my instincts were working at fever pitch. I could remember the pain and that is all that my body needed. It was only when I rolled into a pile of left over lumber that I could take stock of what had happened.  
I'd been bitten. I ran my hand over my leg and felt nothing; there was no twinge of pain that would draw a whimper, shout or scream. Raising my hand in front of my eyes I could see that my palm was stained with something dark. In the dark of the late evening it was hard to say what it was but the idea of it being blood made me clench my hand into a white knuckled fist.  
Getting to my feet, I steadied myself against the lumber and looked at the door that led out of the yard, the place where my last conscious memory took place. The door was hanging by the upper hinge and I could see patches of unvarnished wood where the door had buckled under some force. The frame was in no better shape. Whatever had come through the door had been seriously pissed.  
But the question that came to my mind was fairly simple.  
* What shut the door and what opened it? *  
I had an idea that the woman who bit me was the one that probably shut the door. It sort of made me think about what came after but I had something to think about now.  
Finding that bitch and kicking the shit out of her. Yes she was a woman and yes my parents had ingrained 'be nice to women' into me since day one of my life but right here and right now that woman was so much of a stain on the sole of my boots.  
I turned to face the house and saw that the back door and I couldn't help but groan. The door had probably been open for at least an hour. And in a neighborhood like this that could mean I was now a little lighter in the ownership of a large amount of home entertainment equipment and I could look forward to many hours of filling out insurance claim forms.  
"Fuck. Another thing to blame that cow for!"  
I walked into the kitchen and looked around. The only thing I could see out of place was a cheap looking gym bag. The zipper was drawn open but I couldn't see if there was anything inside. That didn't matter. The fact that this bag was here meant that someone was in the house and that someone didn't belong. And that someone, probably an enterprising bit of Northsider Dublin scum was now elected to have my anger and frustration vented on his soon to be broken skull.   
The light form the kitchen ceiling gave me something else to worry about. The cloth that was wrapped around my hand had partially stiffened from the blood and other filth that stained it. The chance of infection wasn't a major concern but the lack of feeling was.   
I couldn't feel the wound.  
Unwinding the dishcloth carefully I winced in anticipation of what I was going to see. Flashes of a gaping, suppurating wound that was colored the sickly green of gangrene went through my mind. All I got for my troubles was a dirty palm.  
"That can't be."  
I ran my left hand across my left, using the fingers to probe where I had felt the cut and the pain. I could remember everything about what had happened, right down to the shock of putting the cloth on it. And then there was when that...  
I looked down where the woman had bitten me and saw four ugly tears in my jeans, each less than an inch long. The blood that still soaked the cotton around the bite showed how serious that it had been. The unblemished skin underneath the jeans was the scariest thing for me.  
The scariest thing was remembering two things that had hit me and the two huge wholes that they had left in my T-shirt. I closed my eyes and tried to recall what I had seen but my memory was an unfocused blur. My glasses had fallen...  
My glasses were still outside.   
I looked at the far wall of the kitchen and I realized that I could see the crack in the wall that I tried to repair with putty.   
"Fucking Hell!"  
Looking at walls and wounds wasn't what I needed to do at this moment. What I needed to do was look in a mirror. I needed to see my own face.  
  
******  
  
Things were as sure as shit different.   
For most of my life I've had to wear glasses that could be referred to as coke bottle thick with only with extreme charity. My only salvation in the last few years had been the advent of the high-density lens, which had made sure that I didn't need a special trolley mounted on the front of my face.  
And now I could see the faint marks of twenty-year-old stitches on my cheek without the benefit of seventh quid's worth of glass.  
I looked into the reflection and saw that the color of my eyes was now a bright blue, not the hazel that they had been before the... whatever had happened.   
I took stock of what had happened to me. I had near perfect sight and the wounds that I had received hadn't even left a scar behind. And I was as hungry as hell.   
Walking back into the kitchen I saw the massive black backpack that I had seen before. For a second the thought that Nicola was back having missed her flight flitted across my mind. But she would have called first before returning to the house. My other two sisters were working or in school and neither of my parents would ever have used a bag like this, not even in an emergency.  
Curiosity got the better of I as I reached into the bag and pulled out a small but heavy sack. For a second it caught on some metal and string thing in the bag but I pulled the bag clear. It was a heavy, clear plastic that was filled with a dark fluid. There were two small pipes coming from the bottom and some sort of hole for hanging the sack at the other end. The bag had a square patch on one of its sides where a label had been and with that I realized what I was holding in my hands.  
Blood.  
I tossed it away and watched as it burst open on the ground.  
  
******  
  
  
I looked at the mess on the floor and gagged when the coppery scent of blood filled my nostrils. The sudden coughing fit that I had felt coming on disappeared as my mouth began to fill with saliva. The smell was batter than anything than I had ever smelt in my life. It was the nearest thing to nectar as far as I would ever know.  
I rooted around in the bag again and pulled out another plasma pouch. Holding that bag in my hand, I had to resist the compulsion to bite into it. For all the horror I felt at the thought, it was hard to resist. I ran my tongue over my teeth and stopped at the feel of a larger than usual tooth. I needed the mirror again.  
Careful of the mess on the floor I stepped over the scarlet puddle and came face to face with my attacker.  
I looked at her face and almost smiled. The first time I'd seen her she'd been pale beyond belief but that pallor was gone, replaced with a slight tan. It didn't harm her looks any. She was looking at me too, letting her gaze roam over my face, lingering on my mouth. She gasped when she saw something there and stepped back, raising her hands up in front of her body.  
My newest scariest thing was that she was holding a sword.  
A part of my mind saw the sword and the years of being a library bound nerd kicked in and a description popped into my mind, 'Celtic Leaf Sword, originally Bronze, precursor to the Roman Gladius, the common sword of the Roman legions '. The other part of my mind kicked into action and I swung my fist in a roundhouse and clipped her chin.   
She staggered back and brought the sword up for a far more destructive blow of her own. I threw the bag of blood at her face and her swing changed direction moving the sword up to block the bag. The moment's distraction paid off and I punched out again hitting her in the waist. She staggered back again, falling against the banister railings and then onto the floor of the hall. She rolled over and looked up at me, and she didn't look happy. Pissed would be best way to describe the way she looked.  
Very pissed.  
She launched herself from the ground and met my charge. She lashed out with her fist and punched me in the chest, lifting me off of my feet. I felt the air leave my lungs as I flew back and slammed into the kitchen doorframe. In passing my hands had gone out to balance my but I only succeeded in putting my fist through the mirror hanging on the wall. I saw the blood gush out as the glass cut into the back of my hand but I didn't feel the pain. The only reaction I had was to return the attack.  
She flew across the distance between us and pulled me up by my shoulders. Using the force of her pull, I snarled and punched up, hitting her in the stomach with all my strength. She doubled over and I grabbed her shoulder, pulling her head down to meet mine.  
"Stitch this you BITCH!"  
My forehead smacked into her nose and it broke with a massive scrunch of bone. She staggered back, blood pouring down her face and I used the time to grab her again.  
That was a mistake.  
The next thing I knew I was on the ground feeling like someone had used a two-by-four on my nuts. I curled up into a ball trying to breath and held the family jewels in my hands and hoped I'd die so the pain would just go away but knew it wouldn't. It had happened to me a few times before and it never got easier.  
My vision was as blurred as hell but I could still see her walk into the kitchen. She was out of sight for a second and I heard the squeak as the tap was turned on and then off. She came back into sight wiping her face with a cloth and looked down at me before picking up the backpack. She shouldered it in one move and turned away. Gathering in as much breath as I could and tried to speak.  
All that came out was a gasp and I was afraid she hadn't even heard that attempt.  
But she turned to look at me and, for one second, I saw something in her expression that I couldn't place. I followed her gaze and saw a cut on my hand heal before my eyes, small darts of electricity passing over the wound.   
"What the fuck did you do to me?"  
  
******  
  
"I'M A WHAT?"  
She leaned forward in her chair and looked at me not saying anything at my outburst. I had to say this for her, she had a hell of a lot of... poise, if you could call it that. She was dressed in a tattered pair of jeans and a T-shirt and she wore them like they were the clothes of a noble.  
"You are a vampire. Or a hybrid, I cannot tell. Your heart is beating but you have displayed the characteristics of one of... our kind. And something else, something that I have never before seen but I have heard of instances like this. But I cannot tell at the moment, I am still too weak. And I must leave now."  
I was still shaking my head at the thought of being what she said that I had become. In the few minutes after the fight, she'd told me about the need for blood and the sunlight and the holy objects but it didn't ring true.  
"You need something to eat? I've food in the kitchen."  
He didn't bother waiting for her to answer and staggered out of the room, slowly and slightly bent over. The kitchen was a mess with the pool of blood nicely spreading across the white tiles staining them an ugly scarlet. Muttering to myself about Aoife's comments if she ever heard of me doing this, I got a roll of paper towel unreeled it all out and dropped it onto the mess. That would take care of it until after I was fed.  
Since my fridge was a hunk of crap out in the back I had to make do with a couple of crackers and some sliced cheese. I heard my guest come into the room and root around in her bag. I turned with my mouth half full and the sight that I saw almost made me toss up what little I had eaten.  
She was standing there, hair still wet from the shower, her mouth almost welded to a bag of plasma and a look of almost animal pleasure on her face. The bag folded in on itself in seconds, the life giving liquid draining out quickly and she tossed the empty bag aside to grab another one. She stopped when she took in what I was eating. Disgust and other emotions played across her face. I swallowed and smiled.  
"Listen dear. I won't comment on your O-negative delight and you don't say anything about my cheese sango, alright?"  
She shook her head.  
"It's not that. It's just that you shouldn't be able to eat, John."  
"What?"  
The fact that she knew my name made me stop and look at her and she saw the realization on my face.  
"I saw your name on the family photograph in your sitting room."  
I nodded but there was still something else to be cleared up.  
"If you don't mind..."  
She smiled.  
"My name is Fl... Janette LaCroix de Brabante."  
The way that she said her names and stood tall and ramrod stiff made me smile. For a second I could see her standing in any Royal court and saying that. It was really old-school stuff.  
"Nice to meet you Janette. Call me Jack, Jack Curran."  
She frowned.  
"But the bills and envelopes that I saw say 'John Curran' not I."  
I shrugged.  
"It's my Granduncle's name. Everyone says I'm exactly like him. And while we're getting cozy and trading blood, what happens now? Are you heading out the door or..."  
I left her to finish the sentence that I'd started. From the flicker of emotion in her face I could see that my question wasn't exactly welcome. Neither was the sarcasm. I didn't know how she'd react and that was not a good thing. I knew from our little tete-a-tete that she was a lot stronger than me and if she was offended... She scowled and I relaxed.  
"Is that all you have to say?"  
In all honesty my mind had built up a thousand questions and each one had been tossed away in favor of the immortal question that had been asked since Aristotle.  
"Why me? Why did you make me what I am now?"  
The scowl disappeared and her face went calm for all of one second.  
"It was a matter of survival. You were dying and what blood you had was wasting itself on the ground. If you're asking why I turned you, I can't answer that. I was hurt, in pain and very hungry and you were there."  
For a moment I thought about her answer and counted to ten. I was exiled to the night because she had been hungry and I had been dying...  
"What the hell do you mean that I was dying? All I remember I you biting me on the leg and then you hitting me with something, somehow?"  
She lifted the bag and opened it, unzipping it fully. I'd been wondering what the hell the weird metal and string shapes were that had poked out of each side of the bag when I'd originally opened it and now I knew. Pulling hard she showed me the crossbow.  
I panicked.  
I could only see a weapon, a person who had admitted to BITING me and the blood from the attack was still damp on my clothes.   
It took a lot not to jump across the table, grab the crossbow, smack her one across the head and then shoot her. Maybe it was the fact that she had kicked the crud out me earlier or that I felt she hadn't lied once... yet.   
"The Hunters shot you."  
* That did not sound good. *  
If someone was hunting her AND had shot at her then that meant they were very serious. And if they were very serious then they had followed her here. And that scared me a lot more than the crossbow.  
"Did they follow you? Did they come here? Did they see me out there?"  
She nodded her answer and that meant that my entire day, as bad as it had been, was now completely fucked. If they were stupid, I might be okay but stupid people did not take on vampires, from what I now knew of their abilities, at any time of day or night. Smart meant that they'd watch to see if my body had been found and if it hadn't they would...  
I clutched at my head and shook it. I was too tired to think straight and worrying wouldn't help me any.  
"Are you going to leave?"  
She shrugged and sort of reached towards the bag and stopped. Her eyes glazed over in memory and I could see the pain she had been going through. It was a lot like the pain I saw in my own eyes when I remembered the humiliation and anger that I'd felt in school when the inbred scum that passed for bullies had chased me across schoolyards. But her chase had more lethal consequences. Her eyes brightened again and she looked at me, her 'offspring'.  
"No. I need to stay now."  
The 'now' made me want to ask her why the situation had changed and knew it had to do with me. But that would have to wait. For the moment we had to make sure that these 'Hunters' wouldn't have an easy time of it if they decided to come back.  
The first problem was the back door, or more importantly, the door of the backyard. Its lock was smashed beyond repair and that meant that blocking it was the only course of action. And here is where I got one of my first surprises.  
Janette strode out into the alley and picked up the battered fridge like it weighed nothing and brought it back into the yard. Shutting the door behind her as best I could, I looked on as she just threw the battered metal box to the ground at the door's base.   
"How?"  
My question was answered by a fairly cryptic reply.  
"We are stronger."  
I just stood there for a second and my expression emptied of emotion as I thought about it.  
The yard was full of bits and pieces of crap that decorators and builders had left there over the course of the house's renovation. And sometime in the next millennia I'd get around to cleaning it. Most of it was small or light chunks of scrap building material but the lumber was an altogether different story. It was leftovers from the rebuilding of the roof and was now lying against one wall, waiting for either erosion or some natural disaster to get rid of it. I reached down and grabbed one piece, the only evidence of my decision to test the limits of my new 'abilities'. It was a heavy, roughly cut plank about twelve feet long, three inches in thickness and eight wide. I'd tried to move it once before and it had been a painful mistake. My arms had hurt for ages with the amount of stress that he'd put on them but that was a bad memory now.  
It wasn't hard to see that I thought that the same thing was going to happen. I tensed and bent my legs and pulled hard and nearly threw the plank into the neighbor's yard with the amount of force that I'd used.   
Hearing a chuckle, I turned with the plank in one hand and saw Janette standing there with her hand cupped over her mouth, trying to stifle her laughter. She'd obviously seen this before in new... vampires and probably never tired of it. I gave a bit of a laugh and threw the plank down beside the fridge.  
Five minutes later the door was well and truly blocked. Any chance of the Hunters coming through the door was somewhere between slim and none. The kitchen table made the same chance apply to the back door. The front door had to remain unblocked but it didn't mean that the two of us wouldn't be ready if something happened there. Janette gave me a rundown on how the Hunters had entered her house. Just in case they could get by the alarm I balanced a plate between the edge of the hallway table and the door. If the door moved the plate would fall and shatter and they'd have more than a few seconds warning.  
Once we'd done everything we could think of to defend against an attack all the energy seemed to leave me. For the moment we both needed to rest.  
"I doubt that they'll come but just in case we'll both use the bedrooms on the top floor. And before you ask, there is no possibility that they could come through the ceiling. All the attics are separated in these houses. I value my privacy and my computers, VCR, television and sound system."  
She began to walk up the stairs and stopped.  
"I will need to keep the rest of the blood cool or it will spoil."  
* Shit. Another problem! Am I ever going to get some sleep? *  
Squeezing my eyes shut for a minute, I tried to fend off the tiredness that I felt and come up with some solution.  
"How cool does it have to be?"  
"If it is frozen I cannot use it as easily."  
If I hadn't been as tired as I was I would have thought of something in a few seconds.  
Tottering into the kitchen on tired and unsteady legs, I grabbed a plastic basin from under the sink, tipped the three remaining plasma packs from Janette's bag into the basin and wandered over to the freezer. Six pork chops and two very nice steaks, all stiff as boards, went on top of the blood and I left the basin sitting there on the freezer. The blood would probably still be cold in the morning since the room had no heating and that was all that mattered to him.  
  
******  
  
"The news highlights at ten o'clock. Two off duty Gardai were injured early this morning when an unknown number of assailants shot several crossbow bolts into the Bleeding Horse Pub in the Portobello area of Dublin. The Garda Commissioner has condemned the attack as a cowardly and vicious act. Although he wouldn't comment on the specifics of the investigation he did say that several lines of inquiry had been opened. Eileen Gannon is at the scene."  
I swatted the radio-alarm clock and lay back down on the bed. The ray of sunlight that speared into the wall above my head had been my only entertainment for a few minutes while I had gathered up the energy to reach for the machine. Listening to the news hadn't helped to improve my mood. The Bleeding Horse was a nice pub just off of Harcourt Street, one of the safest places in town. The only reason it was that safe was due to the fact that Harcourt Street was the home of the Garda Special Branch and some of the best nightclubs. It was considered fairly stupid to fuck about in a street where there were more than a few armed knuckle-dragging-psychotic-Neanderthals just a few yards away. And that was just the bouncer population. The cops were worse and far more heavily armed.  
Rising from the soft mattress I slowly made my way to the bathroom and got myself ready for the world. I could hear movement in the next room and put that down to my guest getting ready for the day.  
* I may as well get this over with. *  
Grabbing the curtains I took a deep breath and began to pull them open. This was the part that I hated the most, the brightness of the morning. Looking out and seeing all those people going around happy in the knowledge that another day has come and they are well on their way to enjoying it.  
They should be shot. Mornings should be outlawed.  
The door slammed open behind me as the first bit of sunlight hit my face and I couldn't help but grimace. I REALLY hated looking out first thing in the morning. The door thumped the wall behind me again and for one second I thought that the Hunters, whoever the hell they were, had come.  
Jumping back, I hit the bed and rolled off of it and onto the floor. Raising my head I saw Janette, standing in the doorway her head turned away and shielded by her hands. Her palms had blisters of some sort that seemed to writhe and grow before my eyes.  
"Janette, what's wrong?"  
She stepped back into the darkened hall and looked at me in amazement, her eyes glowing and her teeth elongating with the shock.  
"What. Is. Wrong?"  
She shook her head and stepped out of sight. Getting up slowly, I went to follow but her voice came from around the corner.  
"You shouldn't be able to do that. None of our kind can."  
The little speech that she had given me last night slammed back into my mind with full force. Even though he'd just had enough exposure to kill any vampire a dozen times over, I stepped out of the direct sunlight. Now I realized what had happened to Janette's hands.   
Closing the curtains carefully I walked into the hall and saw her standing there, nursing the damage done by my carelessness.  
"How bad is it?"  
Her face was blank of all emotion and paler than I had ever seen it.  
"If you get me some blood from downstairs, I'll be fine."  
My mind went blank for a second as I tried to remember what she was talking about. Then it hit me and she saw the understanding in my face. Despite the pain she was in she chuckled. I could only stand there and take it.  
"I am not a morning person, Janette. Until I get a good fry into me I am not going to be fully awake."  
The mention of food made my stomach growl and stopped her smile, replacing it with a very sickly version.   
"Just give me a minute. How many do you need? How do you want it?"  
She guessed that there was going to be a lot of questions about her food before she got it so she stopped my questions with a wave of her hand.  
"Make sure that the light cannot touch me and I will do it himself."  
It seemed the best solution, considering my mental state. Walking back into my room I pulled out Dad's old dressing gown. It was made from heavy wool, was double layered and weighed about ten pounds. There was no way that any sunlight would hit her body through that. I couldn't think of anything to cover her head but it didn't matter. The gown was there to protect against accidental exposure.  
The kitchen was beginning to smell from the mess from the night before. The remnants of my late night snack were well on the way to becoming several types of some new lifeform. The yellow cheddar was now tinged with little spots of blue and it all went into the bin with one sweep of my hand.  
Pulling the cord that shut the venetian blinds I watched the room go dark as the light that had filled the room was reduced to faint lines in the slats of the blinds. I got the basin that the blood bags had been thrown into and saw that the meat covering them hadn't thawed much in the last few hours. I thought about chucking the meat into the fridge and stopped myself. I wouldn't be able to eat the steak without thinking about what it had been lying beside. Shaking my head I brought my guest's breakfast back into the kitchen.  
"Janette. It's ready."  
The vampire came into the room slowly, nervous as hell and squeezing her eyes shut against the little light that was in the room. She saw the basin lying on the kitchen table and went to it, taking one of the unlabelled bags out. She paused and looked at I.  
"Do you have a mug or cup I can use?"  
Wordlessly, I went to a cupboard and handed one of my older mugs, a picture of Han Solo brandishing a laser pistol on the side. She stared at and into it for a second and then slit the blood bag open, pouring its contents into it. Her gaze wandered around the room for a second and fell on the microwave. Two minutes later she'd popped it open and took out the mug, a light steam coming off of its contents.  
The smell was beautiful.  
I knew that the mug held blood, human blood, but it smelt the way the Nectar of the God's should smell. I felt my teeth 'change' in my mouth and I breathed in deeply, letting the taste of the blood flow over my tongue. A mental picture jumped into my head and I laughed outright. I could see myself, just like Homer Simpson, standing there, my eyes glazed over and saying only one word with drool coming out the side of my mouth.  
Blood.  
I heard the word spoken out loud and both of us froze when the sound broke the silence. It didn't register on my mind for a second and then I realized that I had said it. She nodded as if understanding something and held the mug out towards me, the Eve to my Adam. I knew that if I took it I would be admitting that I truly believed that I was a vampire, a creature that had only existed in books, films, nightmares and now, maybe, my life.  
I went to reach for the mug and stopped just short of the handle. Janette moved forward and pushed it into my fist and I gripped the mug for what felt like an eternity before handing it back.  
"No."  
As I said that word her face clouded over and then cleared, as she accepted the emotion behind it. I just wasn't ready at the moment. She would have to accept that and if she didn't then so be it.  
I chewed on a biscuit and thought about what I'd nearly done. Last night, I'd been tired, probably in shock and had had the family jewels kicked up around my ears. It could explain what I'd seen in the mirror: that is if I ignored the feel of the elongated canine teeth in my mouth at the moment. Squinting, I saw the room's light go from a dark drab gray into a bright collection of colors, the natural hues of wood and metal jumping out and making themselves noticed.   
I took in another deep breath and shut my eyes so I could fully focus on the aromas and stenches. The smell of paint, dust and blood had filled the room, blocking all other scents that a human could possibly smell.   
But I wasn't human any more.  
The difference in the air was the blood that filled the air. There was the heavy wet and warm aroma of Janette's drink and there was the dry smell of the dead blood on the floor, long clotted and useless. I could even smell the cheese, sitting on the bottom of the bin and picking up new growths even as I thought about it.  
Nodding to himself I knew that I was different, that human was no longer a term that I could easily apply to himself and that, at the very least, some of what Janette had told me was true.  
"Janette, I want to know...?"  
I heard a noise come from the front of the house and hurried into the hallway. Stopping short of the front door I looked into the sitting room.  
* There's nothing there. What the hell did I hear? *  
He turned to go and heard Janette come up behind him.  
"There are two... men coming to the front door."  
He looked again and saw, through the glass on the door, two figures coming up and knew exactly who the hell they were the second I saw the hats.  
The Gardai.  
Ireland has no police force. It may sound stupid but what the Irish call 'police' are actually called the Guardians of the State, or Garda Siochana in the Irish language. The two men, still just blurs through the opaque glass, were dressed in the heavy blue uniforms that all Gardai wore.  
I had the usual reaction that came when I saw any Gardai coming towards him: 'Oh Bloody Hell, what have I done now?' But I knew that I hadn't done anything big enough to warrant a warrant.  
The two forms stopped at the door and one reached out a hand to ring the doorbell. I had one second to panic when I remembered that Janette was still in the kitchen. I had to stall them.  
"Janette. Go up the stairs slowly. When I open the door I want you to turn and look at them. I want to make sure that they see you."  
It was probably nothing but I had to make sure. If it were the Hunters coming after Janette, they wouldn't suspect a vampire would open the door during the day. If it wasn't them then no matter what happened they would walk away happy. Running my fingers through my hair, I steadied myself for whatever was about to happen.  
He opened the door.  
The change in level of light hurt my eyes and I raised my hand to shield them.  
"How can I help you Garda?"  
The one on the right, a heavyset man with the low easy drawl of a Longford man answered my question.  
"Do you live here, sir?"  
The light was bad enough that I copped on that it was my vampire sight that was causing all the pain. The sudden comprehension on my part made that new part of me go back to whatever part of my psyche it lived in and I found that I could lower my hand.  
"Yes Garda. I live here. I own the house."  
The other Garda opened a notebook and showed something written on it to my fellow officer. Nodding the Longford man looked at I again.  
"We have a report of a body in the back of your house. If you don't mind we'd like to have a look."  
I managed to stop myself from grimacing and waved the two men into my house, shutting the door behind them. I could have said no but some Gardai can turn into right bastards when they hear the word 'no' come from anyone's mouth but their own.   
The cops were smart and spotted Janette sitting on the top step, drinking from her cup. She gave them a small smile and went up the stairs. The two traded a look that spoke volumes before looking at I with a certain bit of admiration. I gave them a smirk and a shrug.  
"I don't know where you got it into your heads that there was a body out back lads but someone is pulling your leg. I can't remember much about last night but I do know that I didn't top anyone out in my backyard. I may have felt like it but..."  
The Longford Garda turned from looking into the front room and stared at I long and hard.  
"What do you mean by that sir?"  
I shook my head again and winced, running my hand through my hair.  
"The alcoholic haze sort of doesn't help the memory. Fourteen shots of vodka can do that sometimes. But I do remember waking up outside this morning with what smelt like chicken blood beside me and the door to the yard broken in."  
The three men were now outside, looking at the pile of lumber stacked up against the splintered door. The Longford Garda pushed at one of the heavy pieces of wood while his partner poked at the dried pool of blood on the ground. It was barely a stain after the night's light drizzle.  
"Chicken blood?"  
I shrugged.  
"I worked in a butchers. I carted out the fresh chickens every morning. Do that for a few months and the smell stays with you."  
The older Garda kicked one of the planks and it slipped sideways, smacking into the wall and crashing to the ground.  
"How'd you get those piled up there? These boards seem to be a bit on the heavy side."  
I didn't need any of my new senses to hear the disbelief in the Garda's voice.   
"Garda, with all due respect, I am barely able, at this moment in time, to remember my own name and address. But if I need to establish my bona fides call Tommy Gilmore. He's stationed at..."  
The two Gardai relaxed and started to walk towards the back door.  
"We know Tommy. I was out on the piss with us last Sunday. Great night."  
I brought my hand to my head and groaned.   
"I forgot all about the match. Longford versus Galway and the Galwegians gets their heads handed to them on a silver platter. I never thought he'd live that down, the poor bastard. I'd better call him."  
The two men chuckled and opened the front door. The senior Garda turned with his hand still on the doorknob and looked at me again.  
"If you want we'll drop him a bell about this. He'd want to know that you were all right. And by the way if you do have any idea as to..."  
I almost laughed. The cop was fishing for more information. He'd be onto Tommy five seconds after getting into the squad car asking if he knew me.  
"There's a couple of students from Trinity a few doors up. They're always pricking about. I really don't know who the hell it was. If you're talking to Tommy could you ask me to give me a bell if I has a few minutes and I'll tell him everything I can remember."  
The Longford man nodded and closed the door behind him. Five seconds later I saw the squad car pull away from the front of the house.  
"That was too easy."  
I turned my head to look back and up at Janette as she came down the stairs. The whole time the Gardai had been in the hall she had been waiting up out of sight. I didn't need to imagine why. If those two had turned out to be Hunters they'd have been dead before a weapon could be fully drawn.  
"When I mentioned Tommy they knew they had one of two choices. Be a pair of arseholes and keep searching for something, then call Tommy and get bawled out of it. Or they could go out to the squad car, call Tommy and he'll tell them exactly what to do. By now the only thing on their minds is telling the Trinity College patrols to keep an eye out for any students with buckets of blood. That and the cup of tea waiting for them back at their station."   
Rubbing my head again, I grimaced.  
"Now I have to figure out what the fuck to tell Tommy."  
  
******  
  
"...And I don't have a bloody clue who those clowns were but I can tell you this, if I see those cunts again I'm going to kick their balls up around their ears."  
Tommy was holding a bloody knife in his hand, his eyes going from my face, down to the blood and back again. As soon as the senior Garda had stepped in the door I hand pulled the blade straight across my palm and given the knife to my cousin.  
And then I told me the story of what happened the night before.  
Some of it.  
"As to what happened to me I... I don't have a clue on what to do. I thought that you might know something, know someone."  
Tommy shook his head, dandruff falling to the ground with the jerky movement.   
"I know what's happened to you. In fact I'm sure of it but Pat can explain. He's over at my house with Tommy Og and Dermot."  
Pat was Tommy's brother and a regular visitor to Dublin, especially when Galway was supposed to be playing football at Croke Park. Tommy Og and Dermot were both of Pat's sons. I knew those three well enough to know that they were making a mess of Tommy's house at this moment, turning over every square inch of the place looking for some decent food. If they were coming over I was going to need to get some grocery shops to bring over their entire stock.  
I looked up as Tommy went out to make a call. The Garda looked troubled, his normally happy face clouded with deep thought. Relaxing for a second, I decided to let go for the first time since the 'accident' as I now called it.   
The colors in the room changed, becoming deeper as the spectrum of my vision broadened to include the infrared. I could see the patch on the carpet where the sun had played over, the red flaring a brilliant violet compared to the darker areas of the room. The air lit up as the smell of Tommy's breakfast, a nice greasy fry, wafted across the room and into my nose.  
"Pat, it's Tommy."  
My head snapped to the door. I knew my hearing was good but this was...  
"Come over to Jack's house. Something's happened."  
There was a few seconds of silence and a curt garbled answer before I heard the dial tone kick in. Tommy put the phone back down and let out a deep sigh. I came up behind him and heard his breath catch as he looked around. I needed to stop him asking any questions.  
"What aren't you telling me Tommy?"  
He shook his head and more dandruff floated to the floor.   
"I'm going to go. I'm on duty today. Pat will come by and explain in about two hours or so. It's as if this day is destined to be the worst."  
"What do you mean?"  
The Garda straightened his hair with the sweep of one hand and put his cap on.  
"Do you know much about crossbows?"  
I felt a stab of fear. I felt a massive urge to check if my cousin could see the one that was somewhere around the house. But I managed to stop it.  
"Depends. If you have the money you can get good ones but a crossbow doesn't really have the range of a normal bow. But they're great for short-range work. As far as I know they were one of many weapons of choice for a typical medieval assassin. You could have a small one, half the length of your arm, and be able to hit a target with fair accuracy at thirty feet or so. Any further and you may as well say a prayer first."  
Tommy nodded and gave me a thank you nod.  
"It's just that someone used one last night. They shot a few arrows..."  
"It's bolts, not arrows. A Robin Hood type bow shoots arrows. A crossbow shoots bolts."  
"Thanks. Anyway, they, whoever they were, shot four or five into this place and ran..."  
"Was it done really quick? I mean like in a few seconds or over a minute or so?"  
Tommy looked down at his hands for a second before answering.  
"Very quickly."  
"Then it had to be four or five guys. It takes at least ten seconds to reload one crossbow, so however many bolts were fired, that's how many were firing. Why are you asking?"  
Tommy pointed into the kitchen. I looked to where he pointed and saw tip of a crossbow bolt jutting out of Janette's bag, one of the arms of the crossbow sticking up beside it.  
I knew instantly that Tommy was running the investigation into the attack at the Bleeding Horse. And I had more than a little idea that the fuckers who'd attacked me had been the ones who'd done the Horse. And now so did Tommy. Shaking my head I turned back to look at Tommy.   
"It might have been them."  
The old man waved his free hand slightly and left without another word, ignoring me even as the door swung shut behind him.  
"You should have made him stay."  
I jumped as Janette's voice came from right behind me. I'd been convinced that she'd been upstairs when my cousin had arrived. I certainly hadn't heard her come down. My eyes flitted up to the stairs and that little smile appeared on her face again.   
"We have to talk a bit more about what my kind can do. And find out what you cannot."  
She walked up the stairs and I couldn't do anything but follow.  
  
******   
  
I used the scoop and brush to remove the last of the broken stand that had been in the stairwell. Janette had tried my 'new' reflexes and found them, at the very least, equal to hers. On the other hand strength was where I far exceeded her. And there ended my superiority. Once my first attempt at flying hadn't been successful she'd pushed me from the highest landing of the stairwell. I fell three stories and landed on the stand, smashing it into shards and very painful splinters.   
As a by-product of the fall, I'd broken a few bones and been knocked unconscious, or maybe killed. Janette had said that I'd taken ten minutes to heal but she hadn't really looked. But she had said that the time had been very fast, faster than most of the older vampires she knew of.  
I had a lot to think about and now would be the best time for me to think. My 'mentor' was asleep upstairs, conserving her strength for 'what she had to do tonight' as she put it. She had shut the door in my face when I had asked her what the 'thing to do' was.  
Sitting in the big armchair in the sitting room, I looked out the window that faced the front door and waited. My eyes glazed over as I thought about what had happened.  
* Twenty-four hours. I'm a vampire and I'm something else. I can outrun Linford Christie on steroids and turn Evander Hollyfield to putty with one hand tied behind my back.   
Fuck me. *  
I reached behind the chair and pulled out the backpack that Janette had brought to the house. I pulled free the sword and looked at it. The blade was just over two feet in length and little over three inches wide. The handle was a little over six inches in length and easily took both of my hands. I stood and held the weapon like a golf club, swinging it right to left. It wasn't heavy by my standards but then again my standards had gone up by a couple of powers. I decided to put the sword back before I did something stupid like swinging the sword again and cutting off my head I reached behind the armchair again and nearly dropped the sword in shock.  
The sensation was like nothing I'd ever felt. It felt like someone had hit me with ice in the small of my back and grew from there. And yet that didn't begin to explain it. I shuddered and looked around the room as the feeling swept closer, making me think that a thousand eyes were on me at that moment and I couldn't see any of them. The doorbell began to ring as if someone was holding it down and I had to shake my head before I could force my muscles to work.  
My vision was shifting back and forth between vampire and human, effectively blinding me and making it impossible to make out what the hell was on the other side of the door.  
"Janette. I need help."  
He heard a whisper of noise from the top of the stairs and her voice managed to burn through the sensation.  
"What is wrong?"  
"I don't know! And someone is at the door! How many are there? Can you..."  
She moved and I knew that she'd fully shifted to her vampire form, ready in case these 'visitors' were the Hunters come to pay a visit.  
She sniffed and sat down on the top step.  
"There are three and one of them is eating some foul smelling food."  
* Eating? *  
I smiled through my daze and opened the door, looking at my cousins.  
My eyes met those of my Uncle Pat and the feeling disappeared.  
  
******  
  
"It's called the Quickening. It's a term that covers a lot of what happens in our lives. Every Immortal has one. If you get into proximity with another one of our kind you feel theirs. For any new Immortal it's hard to get used to this feeling, it overwhelms you that badly. It took a month for Dad to get me used to it."  
I looked up at the mention of my favorite cousin.  
"Uncle Jack was an... Immortal?"  
Pat nodded my head and kept on with my explanation.  
"The Quickening is also the term given to what happens when one of us kills another Immortal."  
I shut my eyes as my mind tried to go over what he'd just been told and something occurred to him.  
"Sorry there Pat but can you back it up there a second. If I pop over to my bookcase there I bet there's a dictionary there. And if I look under 'immortal' it won't say 'can be killed'. I'm pretty fucking sure that it will say the exact fucking opposite."  
Pat looked around at the cursing and grimaced. His two sons were gone to the shops with a wad of money and a list of stuff that I needed. Most of it would be eaten by the time they were back but that didn't matter. They just had to be out of the house for a while.  
"Yeah I know 'immortal' is not the best term to describe what we are but it's the best one to describe what we are. The only way to kill us, and release a Quickening, is to sever our heads at the neck. We use..."  
Leaning back in the armchair I grabbed the Hunter's sword from where it was lying on the Janette's bag and held up the weapon.  
"... Swords."  
Pat sat back, his right hand ducking into his heavy coat. I saw the move, put the sword down and held my hands open in plain sight. My cousin shook his head.  
"Don't ever do that near an Immortal. We, as a species, believe in one rule: There can be only one. There's only one other concrete rule: Don't fight on holy ground, any holy ground, regardless of the religion. There are a couple of other unwritten rules that keep things nice and civilized but the first two are the only REAL rules. There are Immortals out there that live and die by those two. And kill."  
"But for now that doesn't matter. We need to start training. I know you don't have anything holding you around here..."  
I shook my head and stood up.  
"I can't leave. Not just now. There's something going on that may cause... trouble."  
"We have to start training. You don't have any idea how bad some of these others can be. Ireland isn't exactly crawling with our kind but..."  
"Draw your sword."  
I got out of the chair and walked over to the far wall, a good ten feet from Pat.  
"Draw your sword and try and do anything with it."  
"I spent four years training with my Dad before I was killed and I could have your head before you get within..."  
"DRAW your sword."  
Pat looked me in the eye and I saw that he really felt like he wanted to make a point. Dumping me on my ass would teach me one lesson. His hand jumped back in under his coat and I 'moved'.  
It was as if the rest of the world slowed down slightly. I saw Pat's hand move out from his coat even as he began to sit up but it looked like he was going at a fraction of the speed that he had been. I was nothing to grab onto him, one on his right wrist and the other onto the back of his neck. My momentum pushed him back and the chair tilted. Then I pulled hard and threw him over my shoulder right into the wall by the door. I darted forward again and grabbed the hilt of his sword, pulling it free of the scabbard.  
By the time his head was off the carpet and his eyes were on me again I was back by the wall again, both swords in my hands.   
And I was smiling.  
"HOW THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT?"  
"I can't tell you but I can tell you that I can bounce you around all day long and probably not break a sweat. So you can take it that for the moment I'll be fine without training."  
Pat got to his feet and suddenly he wasn't Pat Gilmore any more. The friendly face of 'Uncle Pat' disappeared and was replaced by something downright homicidal. He pointed a finger at me and repeated his question.  
"How did you do that?"  
I felt the rush of heat come to my face as my temper soared. The level of authority radiating from my cousin triggered every aspect of my new vampire part and it finally registered on Pat. He saw that he had triggered a rage that was only seen when someone asked me a question that they had no real reason to ask.  
"At the moment Pat, that doesn't fucking matter. The thing that matters is that I have something to take care of here and then we can get down to training. And hopefully that time isn't too far away. But until then I just need to know that you won't ask any questions that you know won't get answered. Okay?"  
I handed Pat his sword hilt first and stepped back. The older man worked his wrist for a second and then put the sword back into the folds of his coat.   
I saw the scabbard for a second and went to ask how but Pat stopped me.  
"I have something else to say and you're not going to like it. In fact I'd prefer if you have your sword out of your hand when you do."  
I let the sword drop to the floor and sat down. Pat picked his armchair back up and sat down again.   
"You know that my two boys are adopted."  
"It's common knowledge in the family as far as I know. Mam and Dad told me about three years ago. Why?"  
Pat sighed and shook his head, bowing it and breaking eye contact in the process.  
"I was adopted by Dad too. All Immortals are."  
It was as if my IQ dropped by half in the space of a second. I couldn't wrap my head around what Pat had said and then it hit me.   
My family wasn't my family.  
I felt all the breath leave my body and looked up from where I was staring at the carpet. Pat met my eyes again and kept talking.  
"Your family loves you very much and have since the day that your parents took you home from the hospital. And they don't know. My Dad realized what had happened when he visited you for the first time twenty odd years ago and he checked it out. A shopkeeper found a baby boy in an alleyway and she dropped him to the hospital. About the same time Maura, your mother was in the hospital. Things didn't go well for her baby and the nurses knew that it was her first. She went home with you."  
I kept trying to breathe and Pat took this as his cue to leave, walking out of the room. All I heard was his few words,  
"I'll give Tommy a call and have him help you. He'll have made up his mind by now and knowing him he'll have thought up something fairly vicious and inventive. *  
  
******  
  
I looked down at the bag at my feet and swallowed at what had happened in the last few minutes. Tommy had called by, listened to the story that I had spun for Pat and walked back out to his car. A minute later he was back with a long and dirty gym bag. He'd put it gently on the ground and unzipped it, pulling out a double-barreled shotgun.  
"If you have to shoot you can expect my lads to come around and ask you questions. Mention my name and show them this. I'll have a word with the duty sergeant at the nearest station."  
He put the shotgun back in the bag and pulled out a matte black weapon, shorter than the first but a lot more deadly. I had seen enough riot shotguns on the TV to recognize the shape.  
"It's fairly simple. Load it through here..." he pointed to the silver slot just ahead of and under the trigger assembly, "...work the action and pull the trigger. If you're in as bad a load of trouble as I think you are then forget the safety. Needless to say be careful with this. If you shoot yourself you'll be fucked."  
He put the second shotgun back in the bag and showed me the ammunition before zipping the bag back up and handing it over. He frowned when I took the bag easily, lifting it as if it weighed nothing. A glance to Pat and a shake of his brother's head and any questions were forgotten. He left without saying anything else.   
"Are you going to tell me anything about what's wrong now?"  
I shook my head at Pat's question.  
"Leave it alone Pat. It's not your fight. And I swear that you don't want it to be. What you need to do is grab your two lads before they eat Dublin and go home. And I'll call you if I need you. Until then..."  
The older Immortal shook his head.  
"You need training, Jack. I'm not being Uncle Pat as I say this, I'm an armed Immortal, one of many. And one other of that many could stroll into your life and cut it off. And I doubt that I'd enjoy telling your parents that you were found headless out at the docks."  
"Is that where you have your fights?"  
Pat shook his head.  
"Da was the only Immortal, apart from you, that I've come across that lives in Ireland. I know that a few have breezed through but Ireland doesn't have the sort of society that Immortals crave. Anyway I'll call in a few days. Do me a favor and be alive when I ring."  
I chuckled at the joke and stopped as I realized that Pat was very serious.  
"I'll try Pat. And thanks."  
He held out his hand and smiled as I shook it.  
I turned back inside and shut the door. I leaned back against the door and closed my eyes, breathed in deeply and let the exercise focus my mind. I felt numbed by what had happened but I had to keep moving. Janette helped me that.   
"What do we do now?"  
  
******   
  
It wasn't a hard thing to start with. Before Janette had even asked the question I had already decided on what to do. Looking at the deserted house, I tried to remember exactly why I'd come here. My Granduncle had said time and time again that if someone had had an accident, they usually didn't clean up after themselves. They usually just got the hell out of there.   
Janette had said that one of these Hunters had fallen off the stairs and had been hurt. She hadn't been able to say how badly but anyone falling from the top to floor of a four-story building was going to be in bad shape. No matter who was under them when they hit the ground.  
Finding out that a group of blood sucking demons had lived just a few doors down from me had been a shock. I'd let my mind fill with images of some abandoned church or graveyard haunted by my new relatives right up until the point where Janette had said, ' four doors down, there's a key for the back door by the water trough'.   
The thought of people finding out about the neighborhood vampires would crucify house prices in the street. Then again with the amount of freaky millionaires and billionaires around I'd be able to flog mine for a small mint.   
I shook my head and got back to reality.  
Shrugging my shoulders I let the backpack slide down my arm to hang loosely from my open hand. The zipper was already partially undone and the handle of the sword was just barely in sight. I kicked the water trough aside, knocking the cheap plastic container over and exposing the small key. Reaching out I slid Janette's key into the lock and twisted, opening the door. Pulling it free, I slid the backpack back on but this time with the pack to the front of my body. It would give me some protection if a Hunter came to be on the other side of the door. They'd see the bag, think that one of their own was coming in and relax.   
Hopefully.  
I stopped opened the door a crack and listened hard, blinking as the vampire senses came to the forefront and my vision became overwhelmed by the daylight. I blinked hard and squeezed my eyes shut, concentrating on the sounds coming from the house.   
There was none of the usual noise, no ticking of clocks or hum of electronics. There was no swish of clothes or sound of water running, just the dead silence of an empty house. I opened the door a few more inches and slid inside. The darkness was a welcome let up on my eyes. There was sunlight coming into the kitchen but not enough to silhouette me against the doorway.   
But what I saw told me enough.  
In the hallway I could see the remnants of a wooden wardrobe of some sort on the ground with bits of banister mixed in. Torn scraps of cloth were shoved down onto the mess, pierced by now bloody splinters. I ignored that for the most part. It was the pooled blood that caught my attention.  
The carpet, a beautiful pattern of royal blues and red, had a mass of thickened black blood staining it around the site of the wardrobe remnants. A group of flies jumped up and down on the mess, happy at the feast they had found. And my mouth began to fill with saliva at the smell in the air.  
Clenching my jaw, I looked at the mess and saw that it had been picked clean. There was no evidence of a body or bodies apart from the blood even though my houseguest had said that three vampires had died here. Leaning forward, I inhaled and smelt the aroma carefully, trying to separate the smells that lay in the pool at his feet. And I managed to get what I needed.   
The heavy dry musk of a vampire's blood was easy to distinguish from the stench. But the smell I needed, the sharp smell of living, fear tinged blood of the Hunter barely registered but it was there. One of the Hunters had been injured and badly. Tracking me would be easy.  
Another thing that I had to check out was Marcus's room. Janette had said that the older vampire had papers that would help them contact others of their kind in Ireland. The male vampire had been young but he had been one of the smarter ones living in Ireland and that meant a lot.  
But that job came up empty. The ground floor was clean, apart from the mess in the hallway. The other floors were not.  
Every single drawer had been pulled out and tossed onto the ground. Any papers that may have been important were long gone. But I had one lead.  
  
******  
  
"Hey sis."  
The white clad nurse spun on her heel and smiled at me. She leaned in towards me and accepted the kiss on her cheek and the grin widened. She looked nothing like me but that was a given. Anne-Marie's looks went in our... her mother's direction: the brown hair, green eyes and the Roman nose. At five foot four she had also inherited her mother's size.  
"Hey brother dear. What national disaster brings you here? Your house burn down or something?"  
I gave her a sickly smile and made a fake laugh.  
"Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny. Oh stop you're killing me. No, I think someone I know got sent here."  
'Here' was the Mater Hospital and the closest hospital to my neighborhood. If an ambulance crew had picked up the injured Hunter they would have dropped him off here. If the Hunter were dead then the next visit would be to the University morgue where most of the unexplained deaths would go for examination.  
I started to spin the story that I'd thought up.  
"A mate of mine from Ballinasloe, Simon Kelly, remember him? Well I was working a building site and I heard that he was hurt. When I popped by the place I got this story that someone had fallen four stories onto some shit that had been piled to the side. I couldn't find out if it was him or not, so I came here just in case."   
I watched as Anne-Marie nodded once and then reached for the phone and hit a number. A voice answered and she spilled out some garble and got an answer that made her say 'uh-huh' and bob her head. The small smile she'd had disappeared and she hung up.   
"A John Smith was in ICU up until about half an hour ago. He had some fairly bad injuries when he'd been admitted and complications set in and things went downhill from there."  
I guessed that the shock showed in my face when Anne-Marie looked at me, puzzled.  
"What?"  
"You're so blaze about it, Anne-Marie."  
Anne-Marie shrugged and motioned down the hall.  
"I've seen lots of things since I started into nursing Jack. Some things take their course and we can't do anything about it. Come on. I'll get you to the ward and we'll find out if it is... was Simon."  
The hospital was one big block of six stories each story a figure of corridors, identical down to the smell and the wide corridors. The ICU was right in the middle of the block; a long room with a long window that faced the corridor. Through it I could see it was filled with beeping monitors and I could hear the huff of machines that breathed for some lucky and unlucky souls. Anne-Marie walked over to the attending nurse and chatted to her for a few seconds, exchanging the trivialities that everyone does before asking a difficult question. The question was asked and the nurse looked at me for a second. Then she nodded and pointed back out the door.  
Anne-Marie came back out and pulled me over to a sheet-covered gurney in the corridor.   
"There'll be a couple of attendants here in a minute. We shouldn't be doing this you know."  
Without waiting she pulled the sheet away.   
The man lying there looked like he was resting. His face was serene; a far cry from what I thought a Hunter would look like. Sniffing the air, I could smell the stench of something sweet and cloying coming from the body and knew that this was whatever that had killed him. The smell also told me that I'd definitely found the Hunter who'd been injured at Janette's. Moving closer, I checked the rest of the bed, trying to find anything that would tell me who this man was. A locker was integrated into the foot of the bed and in it was a small pile of what looked like belongings.  
It was a tempting target but I couldn't risk it. I knew that Anne-Marie wouldn't say a thing to anyone if I took it but she might ask embarrassing questions later. There was one way however.  
"It's definitely not Simon. I can't tell from his face but the build and everything is wrong. Poor sod. Anyone know what happened?"  
Anne-Marie took the chart from the base of the bed and flicked it open. It took her a second to find the list of diagnoses.  
"On the major injury list he had cranial bleeding which accounts for his being unconscious. Between that and the blood loss from three penetrating traumas I can say that he didn't have much of a chance when he arrived. And I can safely say that this guy isn't Simon. If I remember he was the same age as you. The doctor estimated this man's age at early to middle aged. Around forty or so."  
"Yeah I sort of guessed that. Come on, let's go."  
Anne-Marie walked past me and I looked over her shoulder at the attending nurse. The woman had her back to me and I moved as quickly as I could, bending slightly and grabbing the wallet from the Hunter's gear. A second later I was walking beside my sister and chatting away with her.   
  
******  
  
I handed the slip of paper to Janette and pointed at the writing with a smile.  
"I am so good."  
The vampire looked at the scrap of paper and saw only one line. One single line... of an address. Janette crumpled it into a ball and dropped it back into my hand. She snarled at me. She hadn't been in a good mood since I'd come back with news about the Hunter. From what I could guess she had probably wanted to have a nice and painful discussion with the man and then rip his throat out.  
"What good does this do us?"  
I didn't appreciate the mood and gave it back to her.  
"I'm sorry for disturbing your beauty sleep but this is our one and only chance of tracking these fuckers before they come HERE AND BURN US OUT OF THE HOUSE! I want to make absolutely sure that these pricks stay well away from my family and to do that I need to find them first. Now do me a favor and open that again and read the name at the top."  
Janette took the paper back and pulled it open. She read the header.  
"Murphy's Fuel Merchants."  
I pulled the Yellow Pages from under the telephone and thumbed through the pages until I came to one page. I ran my finger down the page until I came to one line.  
"Dublin Fifteen. That's Blanchardstown. What's the delivery address?"  
He went back to the phone and pulled a thick folded map from a stack of papers. I unfolded it and looked at Janette. The vampire read the number and street name.  
"43 Ridge Road."  
I looked up from the map and gave her a puzzled look.   
"I know that place. A mate of mine used to live a few doors from there. Shit, I used to live just down the road when I was working at Chronowerx."  
The vampire mirrored my puzzled look.  
"So?"  
"I know the territory. Next to actually knowing who they are it's the best intelligence to have."  
Janette looked on as I recalled the layout of the area.  
"There's a river that runs behind those places so getting to the houses won't be hard. And neighbors won't be a problem. Most of them will be at work. It's all a rental area so anyone at their home will be night shift and hopefully asleep. My only problem is these Hunters. If they're practicing Operational Security they'll always have someone at the house."  
Janette stopped me from going on by putting her hand over my mouth. As a reflex I kissed it. The vampire pulled her hand back and smiled slightly. Then her mouth widened into a grin as she saw me blush. I shrugged and the blush grew.  
"My old girlfriend used to do that to stop me going on. And I'd kiss her hand. And... eight months ago we split up. She's gone to New York to become a lawyer there and I was working in Blanch and..."  
Janette held out her hand and pulled me to her. She looked at me and the grin changed to something that I couldn't place. She looked... sad.   
"We all have memories of old loves. We just have to remember that we have to go on and make new ones."  
She kissed me on the lips and gently led me up the stairs.   
  
******  
  
I looked at my watch and saw it was just after four o'clock. I swore and swung my legs out of the bed.   
"What's wrong, Jack?"  
I glanced back at Janette, lying there on the bed and stopped dressing to look at her.  
"Don't take this wrong but I have to get out of here to Blanchardstown in the next few minutes. If these guys are going to do something they'll start to move now. That's if they're still at this address at all."  
I sighed and let my shoulders slump then shook myself and started to dress again. The fashion statement for that night would be dark hued clothes, something in the black or dark green. I wasn't going to go with Robin William's statement 'if you're going to fight, clash.'  
"There are too many 'ifs' in that last statement, Jack."  
Janette sat up and grabbed my arm as I moved by the bed.  
"How do you know what to do?"  
I sat down on the bed beside her and sat still.  
"There were two things really. The first was my Uncle Jack. He was my idol. That's why everyone calls me 'Jack'. He had a carpentry place just outside of Galway, not too far from my Grandparent's house and I used to visit every chance I got. He showed me a lot about people. Especially on how to take care of myself."  
"When I was fifteen, about two years before he died, he told me about what he did when he lived in America. When he'd been a kid his parents went over to the US and as soon as he was eighteen, Uncle Jack joined the Marine Corps. He got into Intelligence and learned some not very nice things. After ten years he got tired of the bullshit and came back here. And after I got bullied he told me some of those not-very-nice things and most of all Jack showed me how to take care of myself by using my brains.  
"He called living 'playing by the big boy's rules'. If you manage to get to be old and outlive your enemies then you've won. If you don't then you get screwed."  
Janette pushed herself out of the bed, giving me a few seconds of a very nice view before she began to dress herself. I sighed again and we both finished dressing.   
"What was the second thing Jack?"  
I laughed and tasted bile as several years of memories flooded my mind.  
"Up until I was eighteen I was a shrimp. I was barely five feet tall and everyone that felt like it picked on me. Now some people, including my parents, were always telling me to stand up to them give them a slap and they'll go away. The predictable thing happened: I got the shit kicked out of me."  
"Then Uncle Jack started telling me things and I used them. In the space of two years I managed to get two bullies suspended and another expelled. It was going well for me right up to the point when I had to take a tow-by-four to one of them and put him in hospital. When I came off suspension from that incident I asked Jack what had happened and he said 'actions have consequences'."  
Shrugging my shoulders again I pulled on a black T-shirt and got to my feet.  
"Janette, I need to give you something."  
I went down the stairs with the vampire in tow and stopped at the front door. Pulling out a pair of cheap mobile phones I handed one of them to her.  
"If the Hunters come here, stay on the top floor and hold them off with the shotgun. Give me a call with this. I got it a few hours ago so you and I are the only ones with the number. I've programmed in my phone number on the speed dial so just hit 1 and the green key. If it's dark enough run for it and I'll try and get my uncle to send a few units around here."  
Janette kissed me once and held my hand.  
"What about you?"  
"I'll check out the house. If I can get in I'll see what I can find and get out. I'll make enough of a mess to make sure that they won't think it was me paying a visit."  
I held up a small plastic bag with some colored tubes in it and smiled evilly.  
  
******  
  
I looked at the back of the house from where I sat. The Grand Canal was barely ten yards across and not much to look at but it had a path running most of the north side of its length. And every few hundred yards was a bench. Sitting on one that had a good view of the Hunter's house, I used the time to take a real hard look at my target. The hedges that had been planted between each house had grown a lot over the few years that I had last seen them. The house that my friends had owned was less than a hundred yards away but it may as well have been a hundred miles. I couldn't think about them at the moment.  
A mass of weeds that ran the length of the south bank was almost my downfall. I could see into the back of the house through the weeds but not in through the windows. Movement in the house attracted my attention. I pulled the plastic bag up from where it lay by my feet. I should have brought the backpack and cursed my stupidity. A white bag waving around would attract attention and that was not something I needed. Sticking my hand into the bag I pulled out a digital camcorder that I'd bought especially for the occasion. Pulling off the lens cap I flicked on the power and pointed it at the kitchen window, turning up the power on the zoom lens and saw that it was as if I was in the back yard.   
The miracles of modern technology.  
Someone walked into view and began to work their hands together at waist height. I knew that from the layout of my mate's house this guy was probably washing his hands in the kitchen sink. I zoomed in on the face and kept the camera pointed at him for a few seconds. This guy was like the one I had seen in the hospital: totally ordinary. The hair was short and fair, probably a light brown or a dirty blonde. His face was something that you'd see in the street and pass by without a second thought.   
A typical guy.  
Another person walked by in the background but I couldn't see the face, even with my new sight and the zoom lens. Another person walked by, dumping dishes by the first guy's hands. The Curran humor kicked in and I labeled the first man, the dirty blonde, Washer and the second guy would be Dumper. His face joined Washer's in the camera's memory.  
Two more men walked by, again too fast for the camera to catch their faces. But I managed to get a count of the men in the house: Nine in all.  
That was not good. But it didn't make sense either.   
The shotguns would help Janette if these men came for her but they would only go so far. She would get three rounds from the riot gun and two from the side by side shotgun. After that it would come down to how committed these guys were to their cause.   
And they were leaving now.  
Dumper walked out of the room with Washer a step behind, swinging his coat onto his shoulders. The coat was a good sign from my point of view. No one grabs a coat unless they're heading outside. But from Janette's point of view 'outside' might mean my house and that would not help her.   
I took out the mobile and hit speed dial. It rang once and the vampire answered.  
"Oui, Jack."  
I looked back into the house and kept an eye and ear cocked for any movement.  
"It looks like they're moving. I don't know for how long or where but I just wanted to warn you."  
There was a pause on the other end of the line.  
"How long would it take for them to get to the house? How many of them are there?"  
"If they hit traffic, half an hour, depending on when they leave. And there are nine in all. There has to be more than nine. They wouldn't be stupid to have done both your house and the pub in one night.   
Anyway forget about that for the moment. Lock the front and back doors and get up to the top floor. Keep the guns with you and load the crossbow. If they come use the guns to keep them back and call me. Okay?"  
"I called on some others. After dark they will come to the house. Where are you exactly?"  
I looked around to see if anyone was moving around near my position.  
"I'm behind the house."  
"Describe where you are. Exactly."  
He frowned at the question and realized that she was going to come to me once it was dark. And she would be bringing friends. I looked around again taking note of the landscape.  
"I don't know where north is exactly but I'll give you the best directions I can. I'm just off the direct line between the top of a large building that has to be Blanchardstown Hospital and the spire of the local church. The only direction I'm sure of is that I am on the south side of the Canal. The Hunter's house is in a line of nine that runs parallel to the Canal. It'll be the third house in that block as you come in from the entrance road. If I've moved before then you'll spot a white plastic bag staked out on the ground right behind the house. That's the best I can do at the moment."  
"Thank you. I will see you again."  
She hung up before I could get another word out.  
  
******  
  
The sun had sunk just below the horizon when I heard two engines start up. My vantage point wasn't the best and I only managed to get a glimpse of the front lights of a van coming on and pulling away from directly in front of the house. I counted off thirty seconds in my head, then got up from the bench and jumped. I'd thought hard about how strong Janette said I was and I hoped and prayed that she was right. The thirty-foot span of the Canal was nothing to me now.   
Landing hard, my boots sank deep into the mud but I didn't slow and pushed my way into the hedge. The back door was only a few meters away and it wasn't alarmed. I was sure of that. When an alarm was set it sounded a warning tone for ten or fifteen seconds. I hadn't heard one. And my hearing was good enough not to miss anyone inside.  
But I still needed to be careful. While there wasn't anyone inside, some nosy neighbor would, sure as shit, call the cops if they heard the sound of breaking glass.   
The back door had a single large window set in its center, about twelve inches wide. The plastic bag rustled again and I took out a roll of duct tape and a glasscutter. The tape was the greatest invention of the twentieth century and one to be treasured. Especially when it's used for something illegal.   
Running my hands over the glass I wiped off a thin layer of dust, pulled free a two-foot length of tape and stuck it to the door in a vertical line. Another length ran parallel a foot to the side of that. Two more formed a box that covered the whole panel of glass. Running the cutter down the glass the tape managed to ensure there wasn't enough noise to attract attention. Anyone inside would be covering his or her ears with the screeching. A loop of tape pooled around my fist and acting as a handle made it easy to pull the panel free.  
There was still no noise from inside the house and that was great but the problem was time. I stepped inside and waited for a full thirty seconds, using every ounce of my senses, new and old, to scan the air for the sound or smell of another person. And found nothing.  
Moving quickly I ran into the hallway and looked for the alarm panel. The usual place was behind or near enough to the front door but a few minutes turned up nothing.   
I ran through the house, checking each room as I went along and found only a mass of tossed beds. What was really interesting though was that every room had at least two massive crucifixes, each at least a foot long, mounted on the walls, not just ordinary crosses. Small bottles of water stood by the top of each bed. I smelt the contents of one and then tasted it.  
Water.  
A sudden thought came to me and I got down onto my knees to look under the bed. My hunch paid off. A couple of stakes lay within easy reach of where the water bottles lay.  
"Bloody hell!"  
I went back out into the hall and into the front room, the largest of the rooms in the house. There was a few chairs scattered around the darkened room and a pair of tables. One had papers and the other had a silicon goldmine.  
A Chronowerx 600 series computer, eighteen inches square and six high, the smallest and most versatile home PC that could be bought, it was Starling's saving grace and probably the only thing that helped the company stay afloat after that prick Starling had disappeared. It was exactly like the machine that was in my house and identical to the couple of hundred or so that I'd helped build when I'd worked for the company. It was the perfect bit of evidence that I needed.  
I stood back and breathed deeply for a few seconds. I had other things to do before I could tackle this problem.  
  
******  
  
I could see that it was nearly sunset and that meant that all of my time was gone. I'd set a few surprises for the Hunters and messed the place up fairly nicely for them. The only thing that any real thief would take, the computer was already in a backpack identical to the one that Janette had brought to my house. Evidently these guys bought in bulk.   
The only thing left was to get rid of the papers. A lot of it was just junk but the remains of a notebook lay in among them and it had addresses, more than a few. The third was the name of the pub that had been burned down that morning. It was crossed out in a heavy hand with blue ink. I piled the lot into the dirty fireplace and lit a match. I was about to throw it when the dimmed lights of several cars swung into and lit the room.   
"Oh shit!"  
I turned and grabbed the bag. Then the feeling hit him, numbing my neck and I knew that the shit had well and truly hit the fan. The Hunters were back and they had an Immortal playmate with them. Whether it was friend or enemy, I didn't give a shit, I just wanted to get gone. I went to pull the bag onto my shoulder and it caught on the rickety old table. The little bit of balance I had disappeared and I fell back onto the table, breaking it in half.   
It took a second to get back onto my feet and I made a run for it, swinging around the doorframe and out into the hall. The first indication of the Hunter's coming in the door came when a Hunter's boot hit the door at the lower lock, smashing it in and tearing the frame. The next thing I knew I felt a tug of air as a crossbow bolt shot past my ear and shattered the kitchen window. I flinched, ducking to the side to avoid any more shots and that's when the first Hunter hit me.  
I felt a something smash into my back and went flying into the kitchen worktop. The bag fell to the ground and slid to a stop by my feet just as everyone arrived to grab me. One of the Hunters ran into the room and picked up the bag as I struggled against his friends' grips. He pulled it open but I knew that without the kitchen light on it was too dark to see inside. Staring at me with a contemptuous frown I managed to get a good look at him. He was about thirty or so and had the scars that could only come from a hard life. He was about six foot tall and was nearly half that across the shoulders. In short he looked like a mobile brick wall.   
And as the feeling of another Immortal faded I had no doubt that he was the Immortal I'd felt. He pointed to one of the other Hunters.  
"Turn on the lights."  
One of the men hit the light switch but nothing happened. The Hunter tried it again and still got the same result. A few of the others went to other switches and tried them but nothing worked.  
"The circuit breaker is gone, boss. I'll get it."  
The Immortal Hunter nodded in the dying light and made a lifting gesture to the four men holding me down. They roughly pulled me up, holding my arms behind my back and keeping my knees bent so I couldn't get leverage. I kept telling myself that he knew what I was but I was fairly sure that he couldn't do what Immortals needed to do, even with the present company. The electrically minded Hunter from outside shouted out distracting me for a second.  
"Got it boss."  
I couldn't help but smile.  
  
******  
  
The circuit breaker, circuit breakers in this case, were in a small off white box touching the ceiling just inside the front door. When the little door is opened on the box it shows two rows of red and black butterfly switches. If some electrician has been nice each switch has been labeled. In this case they had. Two of the small red ones were down, the one labeled 'Wall Sockets: Kitchen, Front Room and Scullery' and the one labeled 'Lights'. The Hunter flipped them both up at once without a second thought.  
I had been busy. It hadn't taken much to rig the place like some vandal would have. It was the sort of thing that a student would put thought into.  
The oven was electrical and fairly powerful with a grill mounted just above the main unit. Someone, maybe a young crossbreed Immortal vampire had put a full aerosol can directly in contact with the heating elements and turned the knob for the grill to 'Full'.   
The aerosol can cooked off, blowing the grill door right off the oven. The sound shocked all the Hunters and the four holding me loosened their grips just a little bit. I waited.  
The door between the kitchen and back room was wide open and held there by a carton of milk from the fridge. If I'd had time I would have pissed in it but this was better.  
The washing machine and the dishwasher sat side by side in the narrow room and with the power turned on both machines went into their rinse cycles. Hot water flew around inside the drum and box respectively as pumps sprayed to wash the contents.   
The twenty-four tablets from two cartons of Alka Seltzer, a whole load of baking soda and a full liter bottle of dishwasher detergent filled each machine. As much as a student of mayhem and anarchy as I had ever been up to that point, I couldn't take the credit for thinking this one up. I'd gotten this surprise from a live TV program. And the results were just as fast and disgustingly disastrous.   
The water hit the baking soda and released a mass of carbon dioxide. The gas built up explosively and blew out the doors of both machines sending flakes of muck across the floor. As the Alka Seltzer began to foam and pulse out from both washers it formed into a ribbon of the white mass and shot out of the clothes washer, filling the room in seconds.  
The Immortal Hunter screamed at the mess.  
"Shut that off!"  
The two men nearest to the scullery were men holding my arms. They let go and I moved.  
I stamped down on the instep of the Hunter to my right and swung my elbow into the throat of the man on my left. Both Hunters fell back under the attack and I stepped back just to gain my balance and then kicked out forward. The Immortal Hunter saw the blow coming and turned, letting the kick hit his thigh. If the blow had been from anyone weaker he probably would have smiled and then killed them but my vampire abilities were right at the fore now. The pain of the blow held him still for a second and I used that to grab the man's jacket lapels and head butt him.   
A hand grabbed me from behind and I saw a fist come in from the side and then my vision swam as the punch landed. I staggered and the vampire in me kicked in and I snarled. The Hunters didn't hear this and still charged me.  
The first one grabbed my jacket, two hands taking hold of massive wads of fabric. I swung a fist up from my waist and hit the Hunter's chin, snapping the mortal's head back and breaking his neck with a sickening crunch that I felt through his skin. The berserk anger kept me moving and I reached out to the next Hunter's arm and bent it at the forearm. That one began to go down and I lashed out again with my fist, punching into the man's temple and cracking his skull.  
And over the bodies of the two Hunters I saw two more come into the room, aim their crossbows at me and fired.   
They didn't miss.  
  
******  
  
I took in a deep gasp of breath and coughed heavily. Rolling onto my side I curled up coughing repeatedly and spat out a mouthful of clotted blood. I looked down at my chest and saw my second favorite T-shirt was a bloody mess.  
"Shit, shit, shit, shit and shit!"  
And then I looked up. There were two people, vampires, a man and a woman, standing over me with their faces flushed and a look of hunger in their eyes. The man held a crossbow bolt in his hand its tip covered with blood. Another one was on the floor at his feet.  
"May I amend that last statement to 'fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck and fuck'?"  
One of the men chuckled and bent slightly, holding out his hand.  
"I am Alain. Welcome back to the land of the living, Mister Curran."  
I took the hand and felt him lift me to my feet with ease. I staggered for a second as the vampire let me stand without support. The situation dawned on me after a second and I looked down to where the bodies of two crossbow-wielding Hunters lay with their throats torn out. Another pair was laid out at the far door, one with his head at an unnatural angle and the other with a massive bruise on his forehead. They were both very dead.   
I had been the one to kill those two.  
I knew I was supposed to feel something for what I had done. I had killed and there was no remorse, nothing. My entire upbringing had been Catholic and had stressed 'Thou shall not kill'. But these men had tried to kill me and I had done it to them first. And that was the end of it. I turned to the vampires.  
"The others?"  
Alain gestured towards the front of the house with a very cool wave of his hand.   
"Janette and another of my colleagues are watching them. They cannot leave."  
I whipped my head when I heard the tone of the vampires voice. It held the present and future tense. The lives of these men would be measured in minutes.  
I staggered out of the room and down the hall into one of the bedrooms. The vampires stopped at the kitchen door and frowned as they tried to guess what I was doing. I came out a minute later, shrugging on a clean T-shirt. I walked past them and into the front room.  
The remaining five Hunters, including the Immortal, were sitting in chairs, bound at their hands and feet. Whoever had done the tying had put some thought into it. Each man had had his ankles crossed before the tape had been applied. The wrists were done so that the palms of both hands were touching and both thumbs were also tied together. They wouldn't be getting free anytime soon.  
I nodded to the vampire Tomas and smiled at Janette as she came over to hug me. The warmth in her skin told me that she had fed in the last half-hour. With five Hunters in the room that probably made her the one who had killed the two in the kitchen.   
"Anything?"  
Tomas frowned at the question and went to say something but Alain said the question.  
"What do you mean by anything?"  
I waved my hand around the room.  
"Have you asked them why? And how? And who?"  
The vampires all looked puzzled.  
I shook my head. Walking over to the table where the computer had been sitting, reached into the mess of cables and pulled one free.  
"They don't have a phone in the house but they have the computer hooked up. That means they're using the Internet for communications. And that would mean e-mail. So they're talking to someone else, probably taking orders from that someone or even giving them."  
I went to the fireplace and pulled out a handful of papers.  
"They took these from somewhere and were using them to pick targets. There's a bag around somewhere with a very large list of addresses. One of them was the Bleeding Horse. And it was crossed out."  
At the mention of the destroyed pub, Tomas' face darkened and his fangs showed.  
"Four died in that fire. And these are the ones responsible? They die. Now!"  
He reached out to one of the Hunters and lifted him clear off of his feet. Holding the man's head to one side he went to bite down.  
"Stop."  
The vampire snarled at the interruption.  
Janette stepped forward.  
"These have answers to questions that we would have asked. And we would have not found out all they know. Let Jack do the asking."  
The old vampire looked at me long and hard before a whisper from Alain made him throw the Hunter back into his chair. Alain and I exchanged fake smiles.  
"Very well, Janette. Jack, we are yours to command."  
The phrase 'sarcasm is the lowest form of wit' died on my lips as I thought about how it would be received. The bodies of the two Hunters that lay in the kitchen were proof of how angry these people could get. I just took it that the level of 'command' would be only the amount that Alain felt like giving. And that I was being tested for some reason.  
"Right then. Tomas, if you don't mind, there's a bag around here with a computer in it. Could you find it please?"  
He pointed to Janette and the other female vampire.  
"I'm sorry but we haven't been introduced. My name's Jack."  
"Ariadne."  
"Thank you. Could you girls please search the cars outside and bring in everything you can touch that's not stitched down?"  
The two looked at Alain, who nodded, and then they left passing Tomas as he came back in with the bag. The vampire handed it to me and I rooted around in it for a second. I pulled out the notebook and handed it to Alain.  
"Some reading material. But before you pull up a chair and get comfy, could you please be so good as to relieve these gents of their wallets?"  
I began to hook the computer up when the girls came back in with their load and dumped it onto the ground. I spared it a moment's look and went back to silicon heaven.  
"I need a few minutes here. Alain, could you do me another favor when you're ready there?"  
  
******   
  
The old vampire poked through another wallet and came up with another credit card and an AIB Bank Banklink card. He tossed them onto the table in front of me.  
There were two more wallets after that and, with his job done, he went over to stare at the Hunters while paging through the book I'd given him. The smell of fear and anger was intermingled from each of the men and I saw him smile evilly, baring his fangs. These poor sods would probably die and die slowly and painfully.   
I turned the machine on began the boot up sequence, This was going to be the first problem. If these Hunters had even been slightly computer literate they'd have a power on password. That would slow me down.  
The Windows logo came up and I chuckled. Alain heard me and came over, letting loose a snarl at the Hunters before turning his back to them.  
"What are you doing this for... Jack?"  
"Do you watch TV much? Or go to the cinema? I do, all the time. And I remember that film with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. It was 'All the President's Men' I think. There's a bit in the film where this guy called Deep Throat kept saying 'Follow the money'. That's what I'm doing.  
"Nearly all of the major banks in Ireland have started up on-line banking and the passwords are usually fairly hard to get. The problem is that if you have the Banklink card number and some basic facts about the cardholder you can get in. And sometimes you don't even need that. All you might need is the PIN, Personal Identification Number, and away you go."  
Alain cocked his head to the side.  
"How do you know this? And how do we get these PIN numbers?"  
I turned away from the screen and looked Alain in the eye.  
"For all my greatness I have to humbly say that I worked in a bank for six months before I came to my senses. You know that when John Milton wrote Paradise Lost he described the Nine Circles of Hell. Well he missed the tenth one that was set in a bank. You cannot believe the freaks, basket cases and first grade morons that were my customers.  
"Anyway once my sanity was back I went back into electronics. As for the second part of your question I can't do the hypnotism thing that Janette said vampires are able to do. So, with you being the oldest you should have some experience with using it and get me some answers. Or we can get the girls to flash some cleavage and the whammy and you're... we're sorted."  
At the mention of cleavage there was a pair of growls from the women. I leaned to the side and smiled widely. The two female vampires dumped two small bundles of stuff onto the floor. I glanced at the new mess and something in the pile reminded me of something but I couldn't place it. Shrugging I smirked and gave the two a small wave.  
"Hello ladies."  
Alain nodded and pulled one of the Hunters to his feet, dragging him out of the room.  
The vampire nodded to Ariadne and left the room with the female vampire following behind. She was back a minute later with a scrap of paper and the Hunter, now a broken sobbing man. On the way out she grabbed a second Hunter.  
"This one was weak. Less than a minute to get what we need."  
I picked up the paper and saw it was blank. It was a nice little trick on Alain's part. Uncle Jack had told me that the best way to get two people to talk was to make it look like one had spoken. You get one little secret and use it to get a bigger one and then a bigger one until you had everything you needed.  
Smoke and mirrors.  
By picking the strongest looking one and making like he broke under the hypnotism, Alain would be planting the seed in these Hunter's heads that no matter how strong they were physically, a vampire could snap them in half using only their minds. That seed would grow and when the next Hunter was dragged out he'd be thinking too much to be able to resist. And then we'd have everything that we'd need. But it would take a lot longer than a minute or two.   
I started tapping away at the keyboard again and brought up their Web browser. Clicking on favorites I saw Yahoo e-mail topped the list right above the AIB Bank website. Leaving that for a moment I clicked on the e-mail icon to open it up. And it opened up with the username already filled in. The problem was now the password.  
It was a stupid thing to think that you can think of someone else's password at a time like this but it was like a flash of divine inspiration when I types in 'vampires' and hit return.  
The page went blank for a second and then came up with the inbox. For a brief moment I considered doing a victory dance and then saw the content of the messages.  
It was not good.  
They were from another e-mail account, also Yahoo, and as anonymous. If I had real networking training I could try and trace it by going through IP addresses but I'd never really looked into that. If I had more time I'd do it now but...  
Ariadne came back in again and dropped another piece of paper onto the table, this time with a four-digit number on it.  
"Thanks."  
"The last one, Lionel, was easiest of all. He has given us much."  
This time, I knew, there was no deception in what the vampire was doing. The Hunter was probably telling them everything that he'd done since he'd been three and tossed his rice pudding onto his Daddy. And I had absolutely no sympathy for the murderous prick.  
"Ariadne. One second please. I want you to see something."  
I leaned to the side and gestured to the screen. The vampire read down through the messages and I heard her snarl. I nodded and pointed to the last message.  
"Ariadne, these bastards fed in every single target they had listed to whoever they were talking to. And from what I can see they were taking their orders from him. And they had to obey them to the letter. That's why they attacked the house that Janette was staying at and that's why they firebombed the pub in just one night."  
He scrolled to the last message and read it aloud.  
" 'You had better look for the missing pup. If it found a place it liked it could have moved in. Make sure that the pup's new housemates haven't caught anything from him. If they have you'd better take them to the vet. And check on that new home for the other pups. I think that the owners might already have their own. Check tonight.' "  
I thought about the message for a second and rubbed my forehead. 'Pup' had to mean vampire and the 'missing pup' had to be Janette so that...  
I looked up quickly and jumped up from the chair with a shout and turned to the Hunters. I lifted one of them clear of his seat by his hair and pulled him close to me, leaving only a few inches between his eyes and my mouth. I carefully removed the gag from his mouth.  
"The house that you hit the other night. You had orders to hit one near to it. Did you? Did you hit it?"  
The Hunter nodded as much as he could and his eyes flickered down to the pile that the girls had brought in. I felt my fangs cut into my lips, they arose so fast. But the pain was secondary. Tossing the Hunter back down O bent over the stuff that the girls had brought in and pawed through it until I saw a woman's handbag. It was identical to the one that my sister had bought only a few months back. Opening it only proved my suspicion right. It was my sister's.   
I roared and pointed at the Hunters.  
"Watch these fuckers!"  
I stormed out of the room to where Alain was standing over a babbling Hunter. Brushing past the vampire I grabbed the mortal's hair, lifting him clear off of his seat.  
"What did you do to my sister? Where is she?"  
The dazed look of the hypnotism burnt away as the pain of my hold registered. I screamed the question again and the mortal screamed the answer.  
"Markham. He hurt her. We only wanted to..."  
I held the man still, tightening my grip and closing my eyes with rage.  
  
******   
  
I felt Alain move back distancing himself from me, as if he knew what was about to happen.  
And it happened very quickly. I bent the Hunter's head back and to the side. Snarling I opened my mouth and lunged forward, using the momentum to bite cleanly and quickly into the pale skin of the Hunter's throat. As the smell of blood poured into my mouth I inhaled through my nose and smelt the clean sweet aroma of the man's life essence. The Hunter struggled like a madman, trying to break the plastic bonds that held him and that only made me bite harder. I shook my head and opened my eyes to watch the Hunter's flesh whiten as the blood loss became more and more pronounced.  
And then I stopped, pushing the mortal away from me and onto the ground.  
"No, not this way."  
Wiping my mouth, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my mobile phone. I quickly dialed a number and waited the few seconds for an answer.  
"Tommy. Someone just attacked Anne-Marie outside my place... No I'm not there... I just heard... How is she? I'm fairly certain I know who did it. I'll ring you back with a name in a few minutes."  
I hung up on my uncle and gestured to Alain.  
"Grab that."  
I waved my hand at the Hunter.  
Going into the kitchen I found the plastic bag with the camcorder. Pulling it free I checked the settings and saw that it still worked, despite being dropped. As I left the room I found Alain pushing the still living Hunter into the sitting room. I followed the two men.  
I had some things to say and other things to do.  
Alain threw the Hunter to the ground where his friends could see what had happened to his neck. Their faces paled as they considered what could happen next. I clapped my hands together with vampire strength and all eyes turned to me.  
"First things first. Tomas, could you hold their heads up so I can see their faces?"  
The vampire stood behind the first Hunter and grabbed a hold of the man's hair. I reached out and pulled off the tape over the mortal's mouth.  
"One fucking word from you and I'll have him break your jaw."  
The Hunter spat at me and I smiled back. I squatted down so I could look at the Hunter eye to eye.   
"I just found out that one of you bright boys attacked my sister. She's a nice girl, a nurse, and she'd never hurt a fly. And one of you pricks has put her in the hospital where she works, but now she's there as a patient. So you give me half an excuse and I'll feed you to one of my friends here. Or worse."  
The Hunter managed to produce a shaky smile that didn't cover the fear that he was feeling.  
"What could be worse?"  
I stood and looked at Tomas.  
"Out of curiosity, how long does it take for a person to be turned?"  
Tomas shrugged.  
"It depends on the person. If they were healthy, only a few hours."  
I gestured to the Hunters.  
"They look healthy."  
I looked back down at the Hunter.  
"Worse is this: I'll have all of you pricks changed into vampires. And then, just before dawn, I'll stake you down outside where the sun can get you. I've seen what the sun can do to a vampire. It'll be very painful and it'll probably take a while to kill you. Especially if it's overcast and only a small bit of direct sunlight can get through. I'd say it'd be like someone using a cigarette lighter to burn every inch of your body."  
The Hunter threw up.  
"Now be a nice boy and smile for the camera. Say your name and where you're from. And when that's all done I'm going to give the camera to my friend here and he'll go off with it. And you'll turn yourselves over to the cops for that thing at the pub. Nothing will be said about my sister. And definitely nothing will be said about vampires or you'll get a lethal nighttime visit. Once you're out, in five or so years, we'll leave you alone if you leave us alone."  
Tomas stepped forward, snarling angrily at what I had said.  
"You cannot do that. They must..."  
I snarled right back.  
"Someone gave them Marcus. Someone bankrolled these fuckers. And if we top these pricks that someone will probably start up again with a whole new bunch and we have nothing. For the moment just go into the hall."  
Tomas snarled again and gave each of the Hunters an evil glare but Alain put a hand on his chest to stop him attacking the Hunters.  
"I agree with Jack. It will be done his way."  
  
******  
  
"Tomas. I need to ask another question. Do you have people in banking? Can you find out about account transactions?"  
The angry vampire shrugged and then nodded, not bothering to hide the contempt he felt for me.  
"Probably."  
"Good. Take this."  
He handed the vampire a heavily loaded brown envelope.   
"The bank cards are in here. Have your people find out in what branch the payments were lodged in. If it was done by hand then someone had to have walked into the branch and that means they showed their face. Get the tapes..."  
"I am not stupid and neither are our people."   
I wordlessly handed him the camera. The Hunters' eyes followed the vampire as he left the room.  
"Now gentlemen. If you could be so kind as to stand up."  
The men got to their feet slowly, trying not to fall over. I cut each man loose and then stepped back.   
"Walk down to Blanchardstown village like you're doing some shopping. Don't get stupid and run. The cops will run up to you and nick the lot of you and you get room and board for a couple of years. And we will be watching. Bye, bye."  
The one that had identified himself as Markham was last to leave. I gave I a long hard look before turning to walk away.   
"Not you, fucker. You and me have things to sort out."  
The Hunters stopped and looked at their leader but he waved them, sneering at me at the same time.  
"I'll catch up soon lads. Don't worry. This won't take long."  
Strutting as if he didn't have a care in the world he walked the length of the hall and disappeared into the farthest room. A few moments later he came back out with a sword that I easily identified as a saber. The Hunter twirled it and smiled again.  
"I take it that if I win I get to walk."  
I looked at Tomas and Ariadne, getting nods from both vampires before I replied.  
"You won't win."  
Janette came into the hall and threw something at me. I barely caught it in time and recognized the sword that Janette had brought to my house. I waved it at Markham and smiled.  
"One of your friends dropped something."  
The Hunter's smile disappeared.  
"My name is Nathaniel Markham. And you are?"  
"Jack... My name is John Curran. Out back. Now."   
  
******  
  
The back garden was small but not small enough to stop what was about to happen. It wasn't as if the vampires or I trusted the Hunter to move to another more deserted spot for this. The bastard would run given half a chance. He had to at least have guessed that I was different from the normal Immortal. The blood from the bitten Hunter was still on my face and I'd shown my fangs at least once.  
He was acting way too confident.  
The four vampires fanned out, moving to the corners of the garden and well out of the reach of the Hunter's sword. I looked at the Hunter as he came out of the house, swaggering with the knowledge that he was the better swordsman. I felt the rage start to build and the vampire climbed right out of the box with it.   
  
******  
  
I saw the blow coming long before Markham began to swing his sword. The Hunter's body was overlaid with a patchwork of red and yellows as his muscles began to work about. The length of his sword arm nearly flared red with the effort put behind it and I moved even as he did. I bent beneath the blow with vampire speed and swung my sword up nicking his arm. My move brought me within touching distance of Markham and he laughed as his free hand dipped behind him and pulled free a cross.  
He slapped it hard into my face and I couldn't help but flinch. The stories that Janette had told me about the effect of a holy icon on a vampire had been nothing but pant's-filling scary.  
But nothing was happening here.  
Twisting violently I spun and swung my elbow, cracking the Hunter across the head, causing him to stagger. The second or so of dizziness on his part allowed me to step back and punched my sword into his chest, the heavy jarring of the steel against bone almost making me lose my grip.   
Markham folded over the blade and coughed loudly as the breath was forced from his lungs. I grabbed for his sword arm as he tried to swing it around to cut at me but the point dug into the ground as his strength left him. Then all he could manage to do was fall down into a kneeling position and smile bloodily up at me. The smile didn't disappear as my blade swung down for the killing blow.  
  
******  
  
Time seemed to crawl as I looked down at the body. There was no blood spilling out like you see in the movies. It was as if the man had died and everything had shut down instantly. The head was off to one side and as began to transfer my gaze to it I saw a spark of white jump from the body.   
It flashed out and hit the head, disappearing as fast as it had come into being and then there was a second, and a third. Within a heartbeat a web of energy pulled free from the body and it looked like it was trying to repair Markham's permanent damage.  
And then it changed its mind and headed for me, disappearing into a fine mist that filled my vision.  
Everything took on a white tinge as the Quickening began and, as if a thousand miles away, the car- and house-alarms in the neighborhood started to scream shrilly. And I joined them when I saw the Quickening flash towards me.  
  
******  
  
I got up slowly, every inch of my body in pain from the hammering it had just taken. My vision was shaky, like it was viewed though a camera and not a part of me. I could see that the ground was burnt in patches from the Quickening and the house and car alarms that had sounded were now silent. And three vampires were standing over him.  
"Janette. Your childe has some surprising talents. People back in England will be happy to hear of this new addition to our family. Take me back to his house. We will take care of this... mess."  
Janette bent down and hugged I fiercely.  
"Congratulations, mon petit Jacques. You've survived another day."  
  
******  
  
ONE MONTH LATER  
  
Templebar, Dublin City  
  
I leant back into the leather cushions of the cubicle, keeping one eye on the front door to the pub and the other on the lasagna I was eating. The only reason I was taking care not to spill anything was because of the thousand pound suit I was wearing. Between that and the slicked back hair I was the ultimate Irish yuppie. I could honestly guess that my Mum would have a hard time recognizing me. Whish is exactly what I needed at this moment.  
There were two reasons for the disguise today and one was on the table beside my food.   
The manila folder held only a few things, photos and three printouts. All that measured up to one human life.  
And the human life in question walked into the pub, half an hour late.  
Liam O'Neill was a Chief Inspector in the Gardai and a good friend of Uncle Tommy. The man was nothing short of a legend in the force racking up one hell of an arrest record before a visit to Canada changed him. When he'd returned things had gone downhill for a while until he'd taken over the newly founded Drugs Squad.  
The only real black mark on his name was an accusation of theft of seized monies. That had gone up in a wisp of smoke when the person who'd made it had turned out to be just another junkie. After that had come out there no one mentioned the possibility of an investigation.  
From my point of view it would have made my life a hell of a lot easier. If someone had caught the prick then there wouldn't have been any Hunters and I would still be leading a normal mortal life back at home.  
The only problem with this whole thing was that Alain had made me wait so long to confront O'Neill with this stuff. The bank records had arrived at my house a week after the Hunters had been arrested in Blanchardstown and O'Neill's Garda file had come a week after that. I had been ready since then to get this done but it was only after Tomas came back last night, smiling broadly I have to say, that Alain told me to do it.  
The Garda made his way towards my booth and stopped when he saw me. I'd been in here twice before just to see what he did and this table was his usual spot. Wiping my mouth with my napkin I made the motions of someone finishing up and the tweed clad man sat down, favoring me with a smile and a nod before he opened his paper.  
* Time to wipe that smile off of his face. *   
"Evening Chief Inspector."  
He lowered the top of the newspaper just enough to see the whole of my face. I smiled at him, showing my teeth and the four fangs that betrayed what I was. The show had the desired effect.  
He paled and dropped the newspaper to the side quickly. One hand dived into his jacket pocket and I guessed that I'd screwed up slightly. Most of the men in the Drug Squad would be armed and this man was no exception. I put both my hands on the table, laying my palms flat against the wood and prayed that he couldn't see how much sweat had collected on them.  
"Before the barman finds a reason to rename this place the OK Corral, I'd ask you to take a bit of a look in the folder."  
Reaching across the table with his free hand, O'Neill pulled the folder towards his and flipped it open. The top piece if paper was a photo, or more accurately a clip from a video that showed him in a bank. He tilted his head to get a better look and I started the prepared speech.  
"It's from a CCTV camera in the Templeogue branch of the AIB. You can see from the date that its about four weeks ago. Under that one is a printout of the account that you lodged the money to, listing all the other times that you deposited money. The second photo is from an ATM showing one of your boys making a withdrawal. Between those photos and the printouts you can be linked to them and that, at the very least, a criminal case can be brought against you."  
The Garda's face flushed as the threat sank home and the hatred in his eyes only seemed to get more intense.  
"It was you that killed those boys last night, you and the rest of your kind. Getting those druggies to do it didn't hide what your kind does."  
* The guy is totally nuts. What the fuck is he talking ab... *  
O'Neill had left the paper down with the front page facing up and it showed four bloodstained sheets lying on the ground, each sheet covering a body. The headline 'Four slain in Mountjoy' filled the top of the sheet.  
Now I knew why Tomas had come back smiling last night.  
Alain had tied it up very neatly. With the murder linked to a known drug dealer the four men's deaths would be very heavily investigated, especially since they had been jailed for attacking Gardai. O'Neill was a lot quicker off the bat and knew that if my information were released now, nothing he said would be taken seriously. He'd be charged with attacking the Gardai, theft of the money and maybe linked directly to the 'drug dealer' who killed the Hunters.  
"You fucking bastards. You wreck everyone's lives. I'll tell you this much, vampire. There are other Hunters out there and they know about you."  
The old Garda pushed the table hard, trapping me in against the bench. He stood up and walked out of the pub as fast as he could go and I was only seconds behind him, stopping only to grab the folder.  
I was outside just in time to see him step in front of a bus.  
Turning away I took the corner and started to put as much distance as I could between that body and me. Pulling my mobile phone out of my jacket pocket I dialed my home number and heard Alain pick up.  
"You got what you wanted Alain. He's dead. Why not let me in on the whole thing?"  
The vampire chuckled.  
"You still have your mortal sentimentality Jack. The reason we killed the Hunters wasn't the fact that they killed our kind. It was because they knew of us. And O'Neill would have had to go the same way as the others. He knew this and took his own way out."  
Clenching the phone hard I ended the call before I said something stupid. I tried to think what Uncle Jack would have said and knew that he would have agreed. His favorite dictum covered that,  
"Bad and good things happen. Be glad if you can distinguish between the two."  
Uncle Jack would have said that the Hunters dying ensured my safety. They had been out to kill anyone who got in their way and my being made Immortal was proof enough of that. With them gone I could get on with my life.  
I just wish that he were here to tell me how to do that.  
  
  
END  
  
*****************************************  
  
  
Garda/Gardai - The two words are Irish and are the shortened version of Garda Siochana/Gardai Siochana. The first is the singular and the latter is the plural form.  
Blanchardstown does exist and lies east of Dublin City. It's two claims to fame are (1) the largest shopping center in Ireland and (2) I live there.   
  
And before anyone asks I have two sequels in mind. I just have to get off my lazy ass and start writing them.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
